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I 


THE SHORES 


OF THE 

M ED ITE R R A NEAN. 



r 


LONDON: 

C. ROWORTH AND SONS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR 


r 


PHE SHORES 


THE MEDITERRANEAN 


BY 


,v/ 


FRANK HALL STANDISH, Esq. 



LONDON: MDCCCXXXVIL £y 









SIR ROBERT HOLT LEGH, Bart 


THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, 


AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR THE MANY EXCELLENT QUALITIES 


WHICH HE POSSESSES, AND THAT CLASSIC TASTE 


WHICH HAS GUIDED THE STUDIES OF THE AUTHOR, 


AND TO WHICH HE IS SO MUCH INDEBTED. 




. 

. 








































' ■ 































■ 










CONTENTS. 


Cadiz. 

Page 

CHAPTER I. 

Seville. 

CHAPTER II. 

Italica. 

CHAPTER III. 

* 0 

Port Saint Mary’s. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Xeres . 

CHAPTER V. 

. 30 


CHAPTER VI. 

Carthusian Convent.'. 37 


Gibraltar . 

CHAPTER VII. 

At Sea. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Malta. 

CHAPTER IX. 












Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

CHAPTER XI. 

At Sea. 07 

CHAPTER XII. 

Messina. 70 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Giardina—Taormina. 79 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Catania. 85 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Lettiga . 97 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Syracuse . 103 

CHAPTER XVII. 

# 

On the Road . 119 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Girgenti . 125 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Marsala . 141 

CHAPTER XX. 

Ruins oe Selinuntum. 149 

Mazzara . 158 

CHAPTER XXI. 

i 

Palermo . 160 

Segesta. 162 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Town and Neighbourhood of Palermo. 170 
















CONTENTS. 


IX 


Page 

CHAPTER XX11I. 

Palermo and its Neighbourhood. 194 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

General Remarks on Sicily. 246 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Naples. 256 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Precincts of Naples. 313 


b 









PREFACE. 


Many years have now elapsed since I first be¬ 
came a wanderer, and my happiest days have 
been spent in the countries which I have at¬ 
tempted to describe. 

What was formerly a journey undertaken 
merely for enjoyment and for change of scene, has 
now become an expedition in pursuit of health; 
the gout, which forbids indulgence in sensual 
pleasures, has thrown me upon intellectual gra¬ 
tifications; and I shall endeavour, in the pages 
I give to the public, to stimulate my readers 
in pursuit of the arts and literature, resources 
which help to lighten the load of life, and 
render their lovers generally happy. 

The parts of the world I treat of are famous 
in history; the shores of the Mediterranean have 





Xii PREFACE. 

been always interesting. The arts have risen 
and fallen on them, and have been resuscitated 
again. The productions of nature are there 
most abundant and most famous; in short, they 
combine within their limits all that is most ne¬ 
cessary for man to know, and of all places 
they are most easily visited in the circle of the 
traveller. 

In this volume I treat of some parts of Spain, 
of Malta, Sicily, and Naples: to embrace all I 
intend, from the pillars of Hercules to the Bos¬ 
phorus, will require many years of health and 
leisure and freedom. 

I have given my work the title which I thought 
/ suited it as a generic or general one; but some 
of the places I treat of are not on the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea. 

Constantinople, 

October 27, 1835. 


i 


CHAPTER I. 


CADIZ.—January 1, 1835. 


Cadiz was the birth-place of the agriculturist 
Columella, the poet Camius, and the historian 
Balbus. It may therefore lift its head a little 
against the charge of the Sevillians, that Hercules 
shut its gates against Apollo: what is certain is, 
that each stone of its buildings has been raised 
from the treasures of America, as the natives of 
Vera Cruz say that their city is built with the 
bones of the Europeans who have perished there. 
Cadiz, seen from the sea, has a charming appear¬ 
ance, and seems to rise from the element which 
surrounds it, like a pearl from the shell; being at 
the extremity of that island which the fabulists 
tell us was inhabited by the triple monster Geryon, 
the victim of Hercules. Thanks to steam, a trip 
from Falmouth to Cadiz may be accomplished in 
a week; and the happy adaptation of a principle 
in physics, the first development of which the 
Spaniards, amongst others, claim to themselves 
now enables the merchant or man of pleasure to 


B 




*2 


CADIZ. 


consider this seat of a fairy queen of the ocean 
as a watering-place to England. The climate, 
though warm, is not subject to sudden changes, 
and I should think it peculiarly well suited for 
the gouty or rheumatic. The winter, or cold 
weather, lasts from the middle of December to 
the end of January, and even that may sometimes 
compete with an English summer. Cadiz is in 
36° of latitude, or rather more. In early times 
the city must have been very small; and the most 
ancient one, which was destroyed by the en¬ 
croaches of the sea, and the ruins of which are 
seen at a small distance at low water, could not 
have been very large. Tradition, which mag¬ 
nifies in most instances, has stated that Spain 
was much more densely inhabited under the do¬ 
minion of the Moors than it is now, and their 
expulsion is said to have diminished sensibly and 
permanently the Iberian population. This, how¬ 
ever, is doubted by some learned men; and they 
say in proof, that cities represented to have held 
many hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, when 
examined in reference to the extent of their old 
walls and sites, by no means justify the suppo¬ 
sition that they could possibly have contained so 
many. The expulsion of the Moorish race, doubt¬ 
less, lessened very materially, in the first instance, 
the whole sum of the inhabitancy. They are 
represented, however, as a race which did not 
encourage population, being always at war with 


CADIZ. 


3 


the Spaniards, and moreover a thieving, idle, dis¬ 
orderly set; so that, after their departure, the 
industry of those who occupied their places, with 
their settled habits, favoured the improvement of 
the country, and the propagation of children. 
The Phoenicians are said to have founded Cadiz, 
and to have built a temple to Hercules in its 
neighbourhood, the site of which was where Tor- 
regorda now stands. The population of Cadiz is 
about sixty thousand in number; it has four gates, 
and a public walk or alameda, besides the pro¬ 
menade which may be effected round the town. 
It contains in its precincts twenty-eight churches, 
including the cathedral and the different con¬ 
vents. The Captam-General O’Reilly regulated 
and put in order the hospital, which is of a large 
form and good architecture. The new cathedral, 
as it is called, was begun in the year 1792; but 
connoisseurs find fault with the mixture of its 
architecture; and it is not as yet half completed. 
Good drinking water is not to be found in Cadiz, 
but is brought from Puerto de Santa Maria, and 
the cost of it is such, that with what has been 
paid for the above supply for the last forty years, 
an aqueduct might have been made from Medina 
Sidonia, where the water is excellent, to the town. 
The position of the town of Cadiz, in spite of its 
beauty, is liable to objection. Had it occupied 
the site of the Isla, and the once famed Caraccas, 
or Spanish arsenal, been established where the 

b 2 


4 


CADIZ. 


town now stands, the one would have been better 
situated, and the other have enjoyed the advan¬ 
tage of an inland country communication, which 
Cadiz now wants—the town in some respects 
approaching to the confinement of a ship—a long 
narrow slip of land must be traversed, with the 
sea on both sides, as far as the Isla, which is two 
leagues distant, before any country can be en¬ 
joyed. This famous road of the Isla cost a mil¬ 
lion of dollars, or, at least, a million of dollars 
disappeared through its undertakers. At no dis¬ 
tant period it was simply a track over the sand, 
which, however, being subject to continual de¬ 
rangement from the inroads of the sea, the go¬ 
vernment ordered a road to be made, and placed 
a groundwork below, which was strengthened by 
transverse arches; and it is on this that the 
present fine causeway depends, the ocean wash¬ 
ing it on both sides. As a specimen of the pecu¬ 
lation and robbery by agents of public works in 
Spain, which has always existed in times both 
ancient and modern, it may suffice to say, that 
the tolls and taxes at present collected to keep 
in repair the fourteen leagues of road from Cadiz 
to the Yenta Del Cuervo, beyond Xeres, and of 
which this road forms a part, amount to forty 
thousand dollars a year, of which about four 
thousand are expended on the road, and the re¬ 
mainder of the money passes into the pockets of 
the commissioners, trustees, and agents. This 


CADIZ. 


may be taken as a rule for estimating the applica¬ 
tion of all public funds in Spain, whether in the 
management of a road trusteeship in Andalusia, 
or the conduct of a minister of finance at Madrid. 
The old Phoenician, or Roman, or Moorish, road 
from Cadiz to the main land, was more to the 
right, and is now under water, the sea having 
encroached upon it. I have found butchers’ meat 
and vegetables better in Cadiz than in any other 
town in the south of Spain that I have visited. 
The character of the natives is thus described by 
a Spanish writer. “ The manners of the well- 
educated people in Cadiz are free, affable, and 
pleasing, and the fair sex are particularly distin¬ 
guished by an endearing disposition, which is 
amiable and elegant, accompanied always with 
mirth and cheerfulness. The lower orders are 
rough, but jocose, very vain, presumptuous, and 
boasting, lovers of their ease and idleness, and 
given to smuggling.” The public amusements 
at Cadiz are an Italian opera, two Spanish the¬ 
atres, cock-fights, and other exhibitions of a si¬ 
milar kind. There is a circus for bull-fights; 
but those of Port St. Mary’s are better, as is the 
place of exhibition also. At no great distance 
on the main land there is good shooting. The 
ladies in Cadiz all use the mantilla, or veil, which 
covers their head and breast; and the general 
colour of their dress is black. The men wear 
the costumes of France and England; but the 


6 


CADIZ. 


real Spanish citizens’ dress is a jacket, round 
brimmed hat, sometimes mounting to a point, 
waistcoat with tags, short breeches, with leather 
gaiters, and a cloak. The diplomatic dress was 
always black. A net for the hair, which fell 
down behind, was an ancient mode similar to 
that of the Roman retiarii; but it has disappeared 
since the invasion of Buonaparte. Dress has 
however always varied in colour, and each pro¬ 
vince has its peculiar costume. I think those of 
Malaga and Valencia the prettiest. Stories are 
told of the dexterity of robbers in all countries; 

and Spain boasts her Robin Hoods and Newgate 

• 

heroes as well as England. I call to mind the 
relation of what happened a few years ago in this 
town. A man called the Rubio de Espera, from 
his complexion being fair, and the place of his 
birth, Espera, which is at a little distance from 
the town of Ecija, entered the house of a Cadiz 
merchant named Francesco Ortiz, with a few 
followers, inquired for the master, who was ill 
in bed, and then for his wife, who, with some 
other ladies, was engaged upstairs. He told 
them with great composure not to be alarmed, 
that her husband should not be molested, but that 
the object of his visit was to obtain money, which 
he must have; and required her keys, which were 
given up. The Rubio and his companions in¬ 
spected all the rooms on the floors, passed through 
the apartment of the sick man without causing 


CADIZ. 


7 


any disturbance, left his watch, which was at 
his bed’s head, their leader observing that the 
invalid might need it to know at what hour to 
take his medicine, and departed, having possessed 
themselves of five hundred dollars in silver, and 
all the articles of gold and silver they could find. 
Sometimes, however, these domiciliary visits do 
not terminate so peaceably; for an English mer¬ 
chant was stabbed and killed at his desk a few 
years ago, and it cost much labour to have the 
assassin brought to justice. Indeed, he did not 
suffer till I think a year or two after the murder. 
Of late, justice has been rather better adminis¬ 
tered than formerly; but I recollect a time in 
Spain when a man with money or interest might 
set almost every law at defiance, and very gene¬ 
rally even murder passed without punishment. 
In a work written by an acquaintance of mine, 
and entitled Sketches of Spain,” the Spaniards 
are spoken of in the highest terms, and exalted, 
as it were, out of the reach of the eye of censure 
by the cloud of compliments in which they are 
enveloped by its amiable author. Venus could 
not raise a more ambrosial mist to hide her dar¬ 
ling from Menelaus, than this gentleman has done 
of compliments to screen his favourites from cen¬ 
sure; but there is a feature in the character of 
one class of them which is quite sufficient to put 
their goodness of heart in a very equivocal point 
of view. A man in office will have an order of 


8 


CADIZ. 


arrest or for seizure of property against even a 
friend; he will see him pass in the street, and 
not either warn or disturb him, but will go when 
his victim has retired to rest, and with wanton 
cruelty, and, as it would seem, for the mere pur¬ 
pose of showing his authority, take him from his 
bed to a prison, or remove his property and effects 
at the most inconvenient time. Indeed, if we 
are to judge of the Spaniards without considering 
their peculiar situation, and their having been 
obliged, owing to the inquisition and a despotic 
government, to study deceit for self-preservation, 
no nation would, in my opinion, be entitled to be 
considered more despicable, corrupt, and unfeel¬ 
ing. The lower class of English, who are brutal 
enough in all reason, and torment cocks, dogs, 
horses, and most other of the brute creation, for 
their amusement, to say nothing of some of the 
higher orders, who patronize boxing, and similar 
recreations, have still the lash of the disapproba¬ 
tion of their more reasonable countrymen hanging 
over them; but in Spain no voice of reproof is 
raised against cock-fighting, which by the bye 
generally takes place on the Sabbath, nor against 
bull-fighting, in which two of the most useful 
friends to man amongst the quadrupeds,—the horse 
and the horned breed—are exposed to torture, 
and which also most frequently “ hallows the Sab¬ 
bath,”—nor against combats with knives, in which 
a group of spectators will see two human crea- 


CADIZ. 


9 


tures destroy each other, and look on laughingly, 
without taking any measures to prevent the most 
wanton homicide. When an Andalusian is much 
enraged against any one, he makes the sign of a 
cross, and will wait with patient but undimi¬ 
nished thirst of vengeance, until he attains his 
purpose. The sign of the cross is considered a 
holy vow of revenge. 

I have omitted to mention that most of the 
smuggled goods are brought into Cadiz through 
the common sewers. There is a prohibition for 
any Spanish vessel to go more than seven miles 
from the coast in search of contraband traders, 
and the English cruisers involuntarily favour the 
latter, from the strictness of the laws to which 
the revenue service is subject. 



( 10 ) 


CHAPTER II. 


SEVILLE. —February 15, 1835. 


Whoever visits Seville will find it abounding 
with objects of interest, as it combines the monu¬ 
ments and antiquities of Roman, Mahommedan, 
and Catholic possessors. Its aspect is pictu¬ 
resque, and with the exception of Rome, there is 
perhaps no ancient city extant which more for¬ 
cibly attracts the attention of the philosophic 
visitor. The epoch of its foundation remains in 
doubt. Ausonius poetically designates it by the 
name of Hispalis. 

“Jure mihi post has memorabere nomen Iberum 
Hispalis.”-— 

Julius Caesar gave it the name of Julia, and the 
Romans that of Romula. Its walls, which still 
remain entire, were built by Caesar, but have 
been repaired by the Moors, and subsequently 
by the Spaniards. They have fifteen gates. The 
population of the town at the present time ex¬ 
ceeds one hundred thousand inhabitants; but in 
the time of the Moors it is said to have been 





SEVILLE. 


it 


nearly quadruple. I must refer those who wish 
for minute details to the various guide books, and 
will therefore only mention that there is a cathe¬ 
dral, twenty-four parochial churches, and five 
annexed ones, thirty-eight convents for monks of 
different orders, and thirty for nuns. In addition 
to these were twenty hospitals, of which, how¬ 
ever, there are now only five principal ones, the 
rest having been reduced; twenty hermitages, 
and ten other additional places of worship. It 
was in Seville that the first tribunal of inquisition 
was erected, and it has always enjoyed the fame 
of being the most Catholic town in Spain. Amid 
the decay of Popish splendour, the processions 
and religious feasts still here maintain an im¬ 
posing magnificence, and strangers still flock to 
the shows of the Holy Week, and the day of the 
Corpus Domini, or celebration of the sacrament. 
Imagination has figured the Sevillian beauties to 
be greater models of perfection than perhaps a 
minute investigation will justify, or the unheated 
judgment of a calm spectator allow. I should 
imagine the sex more lovely in Cadiz, Malaga, 
and Tarifa, than in Seville; but an Andalusian is 
always an Andalusian; and, as Alfieri observes, 
there is something most original and Spanish in 
the appearance and the forms of the inhabitants 
of this towm. Their manners are generally good; 
and though the people of Triana, (which may be 
called a suburb of the town, being on the oppo- 


12 


SEVILLE. 


site side of the river, and joined to it by a wooden 
bridge,) are rough and vulgar, yet they do not 
adulterate the courtesy of their neighbours. Wars, 
losses at sea, which are attributed to the English, 
perhaps with some justice, a corrupt court, and 
an iniquitous legislature, have all combined to 
ruin Spain ; and the splendour which once 
adorned the Peninsula is no more. The pride of 
the natives revolts at the idea of receiving favours 
and hospitality which they cannot return; parties 
and politics have estranged friends; the influence 
of the clergy still foments intrigues in families, so 
that society is generally confined to a meeting of 
the nearest relatives only. There are, however, 
some houses in each large town which are still 
open to foreigners, and numerously attended by 
the natives. Much has been written on the man¬ 
ners of the Spaniards, and I confess more than I 
think at all necessary. 1 do not find their man¬ 
ners amongst the well-bred essentially different 
from those of other countries; whereas all travel¬ 
lers represent them, or think them, to be of a 
different sort. They look, so to speak, through a 
coloured medium, and are occupied in attacking, 
defending, and explaining, what they imagine to 
be deviations from the modes of thinking and 
acting which the Spaniards have in reference to 
other nations. I confess I cannot say that they 
are as polite as the French, and they are certainly 
not so well instructed as the Germans or the 


8 FA" I LLE. 


13 


English; but they have as good manners as either 
of the latter, and are as lively as the former. 
With the Italians, over whom they express a na¬ 
tional superiority, they yet have many points in 
common, and are not disagreeable to treat with, 
or eccentric in their general conduct. They have, 
however, their faults, and their besetting sin is 
pride; they are unquestionably a “stiff-necked 
generation,” and cannot persuade themselves that 
having once been great, they are not still so. 
This feeling pervades all their conduct; their re¬ 
ligion, which the priests, for their own views, 
make them cherish, has also an effect on the tenor 
of their lives, and gives them an hypocritical air; 
and the two together, pride and fanaticism, are 
the master passions which have subjected the 
Spaniards to the imputation of being prejudiced 
and corrupt. I perhaps may fairly tax them with 
insincerity; they are, it is certain, full of compli¬ 
ments, but their compliments are all unmeaning. 
If they offer you their house, it is as a Persian 
offers you his; you may enter the door, but you 
can make no use of it. If a Spaniard offers you his 
service, it is only to be used when you have com¬ 
mon interests together. There is one point, how¬ 
ever, in which they are more polite than the Eng¬ 
lish; they uniformly avoid saying any thing to 
wound the feelings of another. This courtesy 
prevails even in the lower classes; whereas, if 
you get amongst the gentry in England, (not in- 


14 


SEVILLE. 


deed the higher orders,) any well-principled man 
is disgusted by the gossippings and slanders and 
hints that are brought out; sometimes even against 
friends, and apparently for no other purpose than 
to make mischief. Seville is situated in 37^-° of 
latitude, and 10° 25 ' of longitude, on the banks of 
the river Guadalquivir, and in a plain surrounded 
in the distance by rising grounds. The river was 
formerly navigable as far up as Cordova, and a 
plan is now in agitation for resuming its use. It 
empties itself into the sea nearly opposite Cadiz, 
which may be some six or eight leagues distant. 
The descent of the level in the stream is so small 
from its source, that another European nation 
would already have formed a line of boat com¬ 
munications almost from the Sierra Morena and 
Upper Andalusia to Tarifa and Gibraltar. San 
Lucar, which is at its southern mouth, would 
thus have been enriched by the departure of ves¬ 
sels, and have gained in consequence, whilst the 
communication with Cadiz would still have been 
kept up and open. The more ancient name of 
the Guadalquivir was Boetis; as Seneca says in 
his Medea, 

“ Nomen qui terris dedit Boetis suis.” 

Its present name is derived from the Arabic, 
and signifies a large river. It has often over¬ 
flowed its banks, and in the year 1784, nearly 
caused the destruction ot the town, bursting 


SEVILLE. 


15 


the drains and damaging many buildings. There 
are in Seville twenty-one fountains, three pub¬ 
lic baking-houses, nine slaughter-houses, three 
markets for flesh, fruit, and vegetables, nineteen 
tower clocks, and several printing establishments. 
The butchers’ meat is indifferent, and the vege¬ 
tables very bad, owing to the cheapness of the 
manure, which makes the land too rich; but from 
Alcala de Guadaira good esculents are to be pro¬ 
cured, while near Seville they grow rank. The 
climate here is cold from the beginning of No¬ 
vember until the latter end of February; and 
though the town is called the frying-pan of 
Spain, and the heat is excessive from the middle 
of June to the end of August, at all seasons the 
air is very penetrating, and I should imagine un¬ 
favourable to the weak-chested. The most fa¬ 
vourite walks, and which have been ornamented 
and perfected by the later civil governors, are the 
“ Christina ” and the “ Delicias,” both on the 
sides of the river. The Christina has a superb 
terrace of stone-slates, brought from Tarifa, in 
which are seats for those who wish to repose after 
walking, or to view the pedestrians. There are 
besides several alamedas, and a place planted with 
trees, called the Plaza del Duque, which also 
forms a walk. In San Heronimo di buena Vista, 
Torregiano, who boxed Michael Angelo in Italy, 
who formed the statue of Henry the Seventh in 
Westminster Abbey, and died in the inquisition 


1C 


SEVILLE. 


in Seville, lives again in his representation of the 
patron saint; and Murillo captivates in the-church 
of the Capuchins, while he overwhelms the spec* 
tator in that of the Caridad. Luis de Vargas, a 
pupil of Raffaelle, is perishing on the walls of 
the “ Giralda,” or cathedral tower, and the organs 
of George Bosch thunder through the aisle of the 
building, rivalling the instruments of Rotterdam 
and Haerlem. The Exchange, which holds the 
archives of the Indies, was built by Herrera, the 
architect of the Escurial, and is regarded amongst 
the best architectural specimens that the town 
affords; while the Alcazar, or Moorish palace, 
erected sixty or seventy years before San Fer¬ 
nando conquered it from the Moors, ravishes the 
view with its arabesque decorations, and has im¬ 
mortalized its African King Abdalasis, by whose 
order it was called into existence. There are to 
be seen the gate of the hunters, where the knights 
waited for their king, galleries and courts orna¬ 
mented with gilding and coloured plaster-work, a 
hall for the ambassadors, and a royal riding school, 
with beautiful gardens laid out in parallelograms 
of box, and planted with flowers; baths also, 
which are entered from the garden, and extend 
under the building to a considerable distance, 
supposed to have been formed for the accommo¬ 
dation of their women in the time of the Mos¬ 
lems. Much of the Moorish ornaments and frieze 
have been covered by the barbarous plasterers of 


SEVILLE. 


17 


the succeeding centuries ; but their filth is in a 
process of removal, and some defects have been 
admirably supplied by Dominguez, the present 
restorer. The tobacco manufactory is said to 
have cost eight millions of dollars, and gives oc¬ 
cupation to nearly four thousand people. It was 
finished in the year 1757. The cannon-foundry 
is magnificent, though now disused. The royal 
prison was built by a Sevillian lady, named Guio- 
mar Manuel, in the year 1418. It is in one of 
the lounging streets of Seville, but by no means 
remarkable for beauty; on the contrary, rather 
dirty and dark. There is a private house which 
attracts notice, from having been built after the 
model brought from Jerusalem of that inhabited 
by Pontius Pilate, by Don Enrique di Ribera, 
the first Marquis of Tarifa. It is now the pro¬ 
perty of the Duke of Medina Coeli. There are at 
this house, as well as at the Alcazar, various re¬ 
mains of ancient statues; and in the old Alameda, 
two columns from a temple that existed in the 
town, with statues on the top, one of which is 
supposed to be that of Julius Caesar, and the 
other of Hercules. The general range of the 
thermometer in Seville is from eighty to ninety 
degrees of Fahrenheit in the house during the 
hot months; but were the buildings contrived as 
in northern countries, it would certainly average 
much higher: the circumstance of the edifices all 
enclosing a court, which has generally a fountain 


c 


18 


SEVILLE. 


in the centre, and a curtain reaching from side to 
side above to keep out the sun, renders an interior 
comparatively cool on the hottest day, as contrasted 
with our mode of construction. It is also the cus¬ 
tom to lodge on the ground-floor in the summer, 
and above stairs in the winter : each floor is sup¬ 
plied with a kitchen, and the other necessary ap¬ 
purtenances for a family. It is said that Grenada 
is warm in winter, and Seville cool in summer, 
whilst the opposite natural extremes prevail in 
the two places. The Andalusian servants are 
but indifferent, being proud, lazy, and irritable. 
The natives of Gallicia, however, migrate hither, 
and are patient, honest, and willing. They are 
almost the exclusive managers of the wine shops, 
and reply with civility to abuse which an Anda¬ 
lusian or Malaga man would answer with his 
knife. Indeed, wine has peculiarly baneful effects 
on the Spaniard, and he will commit excesses 
under its influence, which nothing short of intoxi¬ 
cation would tempt him otherwise to do. Drunken 
women I have never seen in the Peninsula; and 
girls in families are seldom allowed either wine 
or spirits at meals. After the discovery of the 
new world by Christopher Columbus, and the 
conquest of the principal part of America by the 
Spaniards, Seville became a place of much mer¬ 
cantile importance, and its commerce flourished, 
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
so much that it sent vessels to the West Indies 


SEVILLE. 


19 


and Philippine Isles, and enjoyed a separate tri¬ 
bunal of commerce from that of Cadiz. All this, 
however, has now fallen away; and though Se¬ 
ville continues to be a place of thoroughfare, 
having some trade in wool, iron, and quicksilver, 
and a great deal in oranges, and being well situ¬ 
ated in the country, yet the advantages are trifling 
to a commercial settler in the town. Waste 
land, however, may be bought for a dollar (Spa¬ 
nish hard) an acre; and I have been told that 

- « 

olive grounds will produce a handsome profit to 
the planter, and their purchase is perhaps at pre¬ 
sent one of the best modes of applying capital. 
Oranges are very slow of growth, but produce on 
an average a dollar a tree for fruit. Pomegra¬ 
nates are also desirable fruits for cultivation. 
Houses have sunk in value, and are always, even 
in good times, troublesome and expensive pro¬ 
perty; so much is expended in paint, cleaning, 
repairs, and loss by tenants, that tenements are 
valuable to their holders only when they can be 
readily disposed of. The most remarkable por¬ 
tion of the cathedral of Seville is the tower or 
Giralda, which was built by Gever, an Arab, and an 
inventor of Algebra, and was raised, in 1568, one 
hundred feet higher than it was left by him. In 
the time of the Moors it was terminated at the 
top by a capital of painted tiles, on which were 
placed four balls of brass. The Giralda may 
have been used by its first constructor as an ob- 

c 2 


20 


S EVILLE. 

servatory; it served afterwards as a minaret to 
call the Moslems to worship, and figures now as 
the signal tower of the finest church in Spain, if 
that of Grenada be excepted. I have heard, 
however, the cathedrals of the north, and amongst 
the rest that of Canterbury, preferred in their in¬ 
terior arrangements to that of Seville; but in 
outward appearance, none that I have seen sur¬ 
pass or even equal it in picturesque effect. The 
breadth of the aisles is very great in proportion 
to their length, and removes the impression of 
the narrowness and contraction of the Gothic 
order: they are all also of the same height. In the 
cathedral are twenty pictures by Murillo; the 
one most remarkable is that of St. Anthony on 
his knees, and the child descending amidst a 
glory and crowd of angels. It is one of the great 
works of the master. In the church of the Ca¬ 
l' id ad there are five, and amongst them the famous 
pictures, which are supposed to be the best by 
Murillo, namely, of Moses striking the Rock, and 
the parable of the Loaves and Fishes; they are 
twenty feet in length by ten high. The first of 
the two pleased me best. Four were taken from 
this church by Marshal Soult, and are now in 
France. There are seventeen in the Capuchin' 
convent, and these have the fame of being supe¬ 
rior in quality to those in the Caridad, though 
not on the same extended scale. There are 
others scattered about the town in churches and 


SEVILLE. 


21 


public establishments, so as to make altogether 
more than fifty ; and perhaps if a person wishes to 
study Murillo well,although Madrid contains many 
of the best specimens of that master, it is at Seville 
where he will gain the greatest knowledge of his 
style and character. The private collections have 
a few pictures scattered up and down; and Mr. 
Williams, the British consul, who is perhaps the 
best judge alive of the Spanish school, and joins 
the qualities of a connoisseur to the talent of an 
artist, (things not always conjoined, for I have 
sometimes found artists sad judges of pictures), has 
fifteen or sixteen, and amongst them the portrait 
of Murillo by himself, which was bequeathed to 
his friend Iriarte in his will; of which however I 
have the original, which is less finished than this 
repetition. It was to the Franciscan Convent, 
which the French destroyed, that the world is 
perhaps indebted for the successful development 
of the genius of Murillo. The paintings of the 
Claustro Chico, which are now dispersed, were 
his undertaking, at a time when he was poor and 
unknown, and employed solely from his offer to 
work at a cheaper rate than any of the other 
artists. Their execution made him popular, and 
he has now, with his posthumous reputation, taken 
a place by the side of the great Raphael. It is 
indeed hard to say, that a painter who imitated, 
though he embellished, real life, should be com¬ 
pared with an artist who was always aiming at 


22 


SEVILLE. 


the highest class of ideal beauty; yet when we 
look upon the best works of Murillo, though they 
may sink a little below the dignity of Raphael, 
in grace and colouring they are certainly entitled 
to vie with him. In point of drawing, Raphael 
may be more classic; but Murillo is more easy, 
and more successful in his groups. Between a 
single figure by Murillo, and one by Raphael, I 
should perhaps be at a loss to choose; but his 
pictures of composition are not equalled in hap¬ 
piness of invention by the Italian. What I ad¬ 
vance may be judged a solecism : let the sceptic 
or dissentient spend a few years in studying the 
works of Murillo, and he will then, I think, waver 
a little in his excessive faith, or his prejudice for 
Raphael. 

The existence of robbers in Spain, and more 
particularly in Andalusia, will continue as long 
as the iniquitous system of the government duties 
and monopolies exists. Their gangs are com¬ 
posed principally of ruined smugglers, who, obliged 
to cut their loads and fly on pursuit of the Cus¬ 
tom-house officers or military patrols, find them¬ 
selves in a state of destitution, and join together, 
at first in small parties, and afterwards, if they 
find a skilful leader, in large bodies, bidding de¬ 
fiance to any ordinary escort, and stripping what¬ 
ever travellers they meet, whom, however, they 
rarely injure, if resistance be not used; and 
finally causing alarm to the inhabitants of the 


SEVILLE. 


23 


small villages near which they halt. They are 
often well dressed; and Jos6 Maria’s band, I 
have been told, was picturesque in Ihe extreme. 
They were well mounted, had a gun slung on 
each side of their horses, two pistols, a sword, 
and a dagger. They conducted all their opera¬ 
tions by word of command, and were implicitly 
obedient to their captain. He, however, after¬ 
wards accepted pardon and pay from the govern¬ 
ment, on the dishonourable condition of betray¬ 
ing his companions; giving a signal proof of the 
emptiness of the proverb of “ honour amongst 
thieves.” His reward was however portioned out, 
and his treachery was repaid, for he fell by the 
hand of his lieutenant; who, being pursued by 
him, approached with a tender of submission, and 
when within a few yards’ distance, raised his gun, 
and shot his former commander through the head. 

The journey from Cadiz to Seville, or from 
Seville to Cadiz, may be performed by water in a 
steam-boat, as there are two which ply on alter¬ 
nate days, or by land in the diligence. By water, 
the journey takes eleven hours, but by land more 
than four-and-twenty; and the former mode is the 
cheapest and safest. I have omitted to mention, 
that a cotton factory, on the newest principle, has 
been lately erected and set to work near Seville. 
The proprietor, and the machinery, are Belgian. 
It seems to me far from the river, and far from 
the town, to which the operatives have to return 


24 


SEVILLE. 


after their work; and I doubt whether the pre¬ 
sent proprietors will make it answer; but it is to 
be remembered that it is the first factory that 
has been reared in Andalusia; that the ice is 
broken, and other speculators may take up the 
business, and profit by the example: and it is in 
that point of view to be considered as a very 
valuable and important acquisition to the pro¬ 
vince in which it is established. Near to Seville, 
on the north, is the small town of Alcala de 
Guadaina, to which the inhabitants of Seville re¬ 
tire for the spring and autumn seasons to enjoy 
the country. The air is very pure, being in 
rather a high situation, and being purified by 
bakers’ shops, the bread of which supplies Seville. 




( 25 ) 


CHAPTER III. 


ITALIC A.—February 24 , 1835 . 


Ye who would see Time deriding the works of 
Man, hasten to Italica, and behold an amphi¬ 
theatre overturned, baths overwhelmed, a town 
engulfed, and a convent occupying the palace of 
the Caesars. An earthquake is supposed to have 
been the cause of this revolution; and Santa 
Ponce, only about two leagues distant from Se¬ 
ville, is the halting-place for the explorers of 
what was once a large Roman city, and of which 
little now remains. A good tesselated pavement 
was discovered some years ago, and enclosed; 
but the building having no roof above, the rain, 
and the thefts of travellers, have left only trifling 
remnants of it for the curious. - Huge fragments 
of the Circus are now heaped promiscuously to¬ 
gether, and gypsies nestle in the ruins of the 
corridors, or in the dens where were enclosed the 
victims for the public games. It is matter for 
sober reflection, as the traveller stands above 
these ruins, to consider that they were once filled 
with the healthy and the gay, and that as they 



26 


ITALICA. 


have passed off, so all shall fulfil the common lot, 
and recede from life’s busy scene; whilst the 
sun rises as he is wont, and the face of nature, 
and the spring with returning vegetation, smile 
on a future generation, and will smile for ever on 
those to come, but cannot bring back what once 
has been. Italica was the birth-place of Trajan, 
Adrian, and Theodosius; and has had the honour 
of being perhaps the only one of the cities under 
the Roman dominion which furnished a man 
whom the empire styled by common consent 
“ The Good;” a title to distinction which public 
opinion now invests with honour far above all other 
fame. Conquerors pass away, dislodged as they 
are by other conquerors,—wits flourish, and have 
a credit which “ plays round the headbut none 
survive to the admiration of posterity, unless 
their intentions have been upright, and they have 
endeavoured by their conquests or their specula¬ 
tions to benefit society, and to relieve suffering 
humanity. 

The work of Laborde gives, in plates and no¬ 
tices, the best information relative to Italica, 
with a plan of the tesselated pavement to which 
I have alluded, when it was in its perfect state; 
he having the good fortune to see it soon after 
its discovery. The traveller of sensibility, how¬ 
ever, should see the pavement first, and the 
description afterwards. Mons. Laborde shows 
what it was, not what it is; and no one from its 


p 


ITA LIC A. 


27 


present appearance could imagine it to have been 
either elegant or interesting: the corpse remains, 
but that spirit of beauty which animated it has 
fled. This, however, is the case with many 
ruins; and we must be satisfied and thankful for 
what is left, and not repine at Time, which spares 
nothing, having left us no more. 




( 28 ) 


CHAPTER IV. 


PORT SAINT MARY’S.—March 10, 1835. 


Port Saint Mary’s, during the time of the 
Moors, served as a place to confine the idle and 
the refractory; something to the same purpose as 
Botany Bay or the Hulks with us. The remains 
of one of their forts are still to be seen; though 
I have not been able to learn either the date of its 
erection, or the history of its construction. In point 
of space, the town is as large as Cadiz, though 
the inhabitants are only about 25,000 in number. 
I cannot say that it possesses any very great 
charms; though there are some fine houses in it, 
and some agreeable walks in the neighbourhood. 
The bar to enter the river is in bad weather very 
dangerous, and the passage to and from Cadiz 
uncertain. They have not yet adopted a steam¬ 
boat for the purpose; and they say they dare 
not, for fear of throwing a large number of boat¬ 
men out of employ. Sherry merchants swarm 
here; there is a good manufactory for beer; and 
it may be called a stirring and active town. 
Caleza drivers, mariners, bull fighters, smugglers. 




port saint mary’s. 


29 


gypsies, and all the worst classes of society, are 
depicted in their genuine deformity. Combats 
with the knife are very frequent among the inha¬ 
bitants of this town; and murders and robberies 
by no means unusual occurrences on every feast 
day. The English residents, who are mostly 
little wine-merchants, affect smartness; and a 
dandy at Port Saint Mary’s is called a peri,— 
perhaps derived from the word perico, which 
means a small pet parrot of the women. The 
castle to which I have already alluded may per¬ 
haps have been erected soon after the conquest 
of Andalusia by the Moors, as they would at that 
time have turned their attention to guarding the 
sea border, and that period is the meridian of the 
Arab glory; for they were then most advanced 
in power, civilization, the arts, and learning. 
The ground part of this building, which was once 
a mosque, is now a chapel, and in good preserva¬ 
tion. Port Saint Mary’s, San Lucar, and Xeres, 
are famous for the wine called Manzarilla, which 
in its variety is the basis of what is called sherry 
with us, the Amontillado wine, which is a growth 
of Manzarilla; and being mixed with what is 
called “ vino duro,” produces sherry; it is not 
therefore a pure wine, as some imagine. “ Vino 
duro” is the juice of the sherry grape boiled down, 
and is used for colouring; but is only good when 
very old to drink alone. 


( 30 ) 


CHAPTER V. 


XERES.—25th March, 1835. 


The habits of the common interior population of 
Andalusia are purely Moorish. At fairs they 
have tavern singers who hold a note with their 
voices, at the same time striking the table with 
their hands, for more than a minute before they 
change it, and the more dolorous and monotonous 
the tune the better are the listeners pleased, who 
sit round, and place their glasses on the ground 
beside them. If asked to a repast, the unsophis¬ 
ticated land-owner will place a small stool at a 
distance from the table, lean forwards with his 
chin on the plate, and eat like the Orientals with 
his five fingers, which they say God has given to 
them for so doing. In their bargains, a merchant 
will throw so many bags of silver on a cloak 
spread on the ground to receive it, for his pur¬ 
chase of cattle, and ask no receipt; in fact, all is 
primitive, unsuspicious, and unsophisticated in ' 
their intercourse. Their ideas are so limited that 
they consider their only countrymen those of 
their town or province; the others they will ad- 




XE11ES. 


31 


dress as Castilian, Biscayan, or Gallician, ac¬ 
cording as they are natives of the provinces from 
whence they are announced; but scarcely con¬ 
sider them as fellow countrymen. A square 
filled with ill-looking cloaked rulfians in slouched 
hats, betokening by their aspects a predatory 
and audacious character; streets, or rather lanes 
of houses without any pavements, and broken up 
by holes and heaps of rubbish, a few good 
houses scattered up and down these lanes, and a 
cathedral buried under a hill, are the prominent 
features in this celebrated town, the name of 
which rings in the ears of half Europe every day 
at dinner-time. Xeres, besides being without 
any good public amusements, is unsafe as to its 
immediate neighbourhood, from the circumstance 
of the frequent murders and robberies committed 
there. Scarcely any one is secure in the town 
after nightfall; and to diverge on a party of plea¬ 
sure into the country is never prudent, unless 
with a good store of arms. Indeed, no more care 
is paid here to the life‘of a human being than to 
that of a sparrow. The gate of the Cartuja bears 
the print of a ball which killed a man whom it 
was levelled at, whilst he fled to the convent for 
protection from his assassins. No historian, an¬ 
cient or modern, as Mr. Barrie informs me, (a 
gentleman thoroughly acquainted with early 
Spanish history, the Spanish language, and with 
Spain,) whom he has read, assigns a date to the 


32 


XERES. 


foundation of the present city of Xeres. Padre 
Fray Rallon, in his history of Xeres, which exists 
in three large folio volumes, supposes it to have 
been transferred from the Roman colony of Asta 
(one of great magnitude and celebrity), after its 
destruction by the Vandals. Asta stood about 
three miles north of Xeres; and it requires little 
more than to travel and have a road book, to 
check the pride of man:—the site of Asta is now 
a farm, without even one house, and scarcely a 
ruin of any kind, perceptible upon it. “ The 
paths of glory lead but to the grave;” but it is 
not merely so as confined to human creatures, 
for the antecedents to glory, which are generally 
wars, level all the works of man, as well as man 
himself. Those who strain and toil, and ruin 
themselves sometimes, to found families and 
build houses, should think of these things, and 
consider, that when not merely families but 
whole empires pass away, true philosophy con¬ 
sists more in enjoying the present than counting 
on the future. The most beautiful use of pro¬ 
sperity is to make people happy, when it can be 
done, and to see them happy; counting on the 
state of the uncertain generations of a century to 
come, is making a lamentably false use of the 
power of wealth : to unite both is more, I be¬ 
lieve, than is allotted to humanity. To return to 
Asta: the several Roman historians who treat of 
Andalusia (Boetica) mention Asta as a place of 


/ 


XERES. 33 

importance, and the birth-place of some of their 
illustrious men. The earliest authority on Xeres 
quoted by modern writers is the Arab historian, 
“ El Moro Razis,’' who says nothing of the town, 
but much in praise of the soil and climate, so 
that he might have talked of the name of a dis¬ 
trict of country without a town at that period. 
Rallon, whom I have before quoted, and who 
wrote in 1689, says, “ King Alonso the Seventh 
of Aragon made an incursion, in the year 1131, 
into the Moorish country of Andalusia, took 
Xeres, a famous city, burned it, and levelled the 
walls with the ground.” The name, Xeres, 
comes from the Arabic word “ Xeres,” which 
means pastures and inclosures ; in Spanish, 
“ Pastos y Dehesas.” The same writer, in another 
chapter, says, “ About this time (in the year 
1171), the Almohades Moors are supposed to 
have rebuilt Xeres, and raised its walls with 
great splendour;” and again he observes, “King 
Alonso El Sabio (the son of St. Ferdinand) took 
Xeres in the year 1264, and peopled it with 
Christians, and divided the property of houses 
and land amongst his chiefs and followers, whose 
descendants are the possessors to the present 
day.” It is surrounded with walls, the ruins of 
which we now see. When taken it had only four 
gates; after the capture, eight “ postigos,” doors, 
not gates, were opened for the convenience of the 
inhabitants passing in and out of the city. Ten 


D 


34 


X ERES. 


“ Caballeros” were placed in charge of guarding 
each of the four gates. The distinctive title of 
“ Veinte quatro,’’ now inherited by some people 
at Xeres, had no reference to the number of 
gates. It was in its origin an elective municipal 
magistracy, twenty-four in number, and sold for 
money by one of the Spanish kings as a privilege 
of inheritance, to the great injury of the people. 
It was, I believe, of Roman origin, a privilege of 
the citizens to elect their own magistrates. 
Seville and other towns had their Veinte quatros 
before Xeres. The historian Zuniga says, at the 
date of 1286 , “ The King (Don Sancho el Bravoj 
in Pontevedra, eighteenth of August, confirmed 
an ordinance of the city of Seville for it& good 
government. Some of its laws continue in prac¬ 
tice to the present day, and are to be seen in the 
book of its ordinances, which, in manuscript 
parchment, is preserved in its archives. In it I 
find mention made for the first time of the name 
of Veinte quatros, in a clause of the following 
tenor:—“ I, Don Sancho the King, grant all 
these things as expressed, save and except as re¬ 
gards the Veinte Quatros Cavaleros y Omes 
buenos, which the Consijo (municipality) have 
named for this purpose, from which list I take 
away and remove”—(here follow the names of four 
rejected, and four more substituted by the 
king). This occurs in the third book of the 
first volume of the Annals of Seville. Zuniga 



XERES. 


35 


again mentions “ Veinte y quatro Cavalleros, Re- 
gidores de la Cuidad de la Sevilla,” in the year 
1569 (in the fifteenth book of the fourth volume, 
same edition, Madrid, 1795). The above proves 
the origin of the Veinte quatros to have been re¬ 
spectable citizens, “ Omes buenos,” elected or 
named by the corporation to assist in the good 
government of the city, and* that the king had a 
veto on the appointment. In short, the Veinte 
quatros of the present day are “ Regidores per- 
petuos,” or perpetual magistrates, an employment 
now bought, or inherited from ancestors who 

r 

bought it. The present possessors use their pri¬ 
vilege for-their own profit, plundering and op¬ 
pressing the people. According to Rail on, Xeres 
had its Moorish kings, and a splendid palace 
within the walls, called El Alcazar, of which not 
a vestige now remains. The palace was de¬ 
stroyed, partly by fire, and afterwards by neg¬ 
lect, subsequently to the conquest. The present 
house called Alcazar is a modern erected build¬ 
ing of no elegance. The old walls that sur- 

O O 

rounded the Moorish palace remain in tolerable 
preservation. Neither Rallon, nor Caro, nor 
Zuniga, who wrote exclusively and extensively of 
the antiquities of Andalusia, assigns any date to 
the first erection of these walls or the town. The 
distance from Port Saint Mary’s to Xeres is two 
leagues, over a part of the mountain of Saint 
Cristoval, called De Buena Vista. The passage 

n 2 


3G 


XERES. 


is easy between the two towns, but I know of 
nothing very striking on the road, save the re¬ 
mains of an ancient tower to the right, where 
Don Pedro the Cruel is said to have confined his 
wife, Donna Maria La Blanca de Bourbon. 
Donna Maria died subsequently at Seville, and 
Don Pedro was slain, I believe by his son or 
brother. I know of no paintings of note at 
Xeres, save some in the Cathedral by Cespedes, 
and his works are not worth, in my opinion, 
the trouble of studying. Xeres is one of the 
richest towns of Lower Andalusia, and its popu¬ 
lation is about sixty thousand souls. The 
butcher’s meat is indifferent, and provisions in 
general dear. 




( 37 ) 


CHAPTER VI. 


CARTHUSIAN CONVENT, 


near Xeres. —April 1, 1835. 


There are two kinds of places which have 
always been interesting to mankind in general, 
and to those of contemplative dispositions in par¬ 
ticular, and these are courts and convents. A 
court is the species of focus to which all ideas of 
greatness, power, and I may say ambition of 
happiness, tend in the general run of mankind; 
and convents are the retreats to which, when am¬ 
bition is satisfied, or disappointments sour the 
humour, or infirmity weakens the body, or good 
men think rationally, all speculations tend. 
There is a peculiar species of contrast between 
courts and religious establishments; they reside, 
as it were, in the antipodes of human thought. At 
a court all is the business of this world,—at a con¬ 
vent all of the next. The Catholic religion, 
however, has caused churches to be more splen¬ 
didly adorned than even courts ; whether to 
strike the vulgar with awe, and more easily ob¬ 
tain a mastery over them, or whether from an 
idea that no cost is too great to be expended on 




38 


CARTHUSIAN CONVENT, 


buildings which are hallowed to the exercise of 
religious duties, and constructed for the honour 
of the Great Ruler of the Universe, in whose 
hands are the issues of our present and future ex¬ 
istence, I shall not determine. The Carthusian con¬ 
vent, of which I now treat, is at the distance of a 
league from Xeres, and I confess the position has 
appeared to me more delightful than that of any 
other building of the same magnitude which T 
have seen in Spain, Italy, or France. Both 
Yalombrosa, near Florence, and Montserrat, near 
Barcelona, are striking and beautiful positions; 
but the convent of the Cartuxos is placed on the 
edge of a gentle declivity; below are verdant 
and fertile plains, through which meanders the 
Guadalete; to the left is the Sierra de Ronda, 
and the distance is bounded by the sea. It has 
been observed as a defect, however, and justly, 
that there is an absence of wood in the view. 
The convent was founded and built at the ex¬ 
pense of one man, who besides endowed it with 
large estates in land, which it possesses at present. 
The church was built in the year 1478. The name 
of the pious founder of this magnificent temple was 
Don Alvaro Oberto de Valeto, who died in 1482, 
and is buried in the church, in front of the areat 
altar. The church contains some good paintings 
by Zurbaran, of which perhaps the portrait of 
San Bruno may be most popular. It is the one 
which pleases me the most; it is, however, infe- 


NEAR XEIiES. 


39 


rior to the picture at the Carthuca at Seville, of 
the interview of the same Saint with the Pope, 
and I prefer that as a good specimen of the best 
style of Zurbaran, even to the famous picture of 
Saint Thomas, also at Seville. The works of 
Zurbaran are very scarce, and he has almost 
always employed his pencil on unpleasant sub¬ 
jects. His Friars with white drapery are by 
most preferred to those of another colour; the 
folds of his cloth are true to the life of the stuff', 
if I may be allowed the term. In the manage¬ 
ment of light he is as powerful almost as* Rem¬ 
brandt, but he fills his pictures with light, and 
Rembrandt lets in very little. He is a great and 
an original painter, and one whom any artist 
might study with advantage. In ten years that 
I have been acquainted with Spain, I have met 
with no good picture of composition by him for sale. 
Indeed, all I possess is a Desert with St. John, which 
formerly stood over an altar-piece in a church in 
Seville, and came last from the collection of Mr. 
Williams, who gave me its history. The value 
of the possessions of the Carthusian convent is 
said to be about £200,000 sterling. The follow¬ 
ing is the account of the Spanish land in size and 
value. The Spanish acre or measure of land 
(Aranzada) varies in quantity in various pro¬ 
vinces; indeed, it may be said, in every township; 
but in Xeres, which neighbourhood I now treat 
upon, it contains one hundred yards square, the 


/ 


40 


CARTHUSIAN CONVENT, 

Spanish yard being eight per cent, less than the 
English yard. The English acre contains 4840 
square yards, English measure. One aranzada 
of good land, well cultivated, produces in Xeres, 
in a good season, from twenty to twenty-two 
fanezas of wheat, and the faneza weighs one 
hundred and five pounds Spanish, being four per 
cent, less than English weight. The neighbour¬ 
hood of the Carthusian convent has its classic 
and romantic associations; it was there that the 
fate of Spain was decided in favour of the Moors 
in the great battle of Guadalete, so called from 
the river of this name, in the vicinity of which 
the combat took place. The Peninsula accepted 
a new dominion on the plains of Salado, or Clau- 
dina, as they are now called, distant from the 
Guadalete about a league north, and about the 
same distance north-east of the town of Xeres. 
To the south-east of this plain runs a small ri¬ 
vulet, which is dry in summer, that falls into the 
Guadalete close by the Carthusian convent; and 
some historians call the battle by the name of 
Salado, from this rivulet of salt or brackish 
water. The Moorish castle of Melgarijo is on 
one side east of this plain. This celebrated battle 
was fought, according to Mariana, in the year 
714 of the Christian era. Don Rodrigo, the last 
king of the Goths, commanded the Christian army, 
and not having been seen or heard of afterwards, 
was supposed to have been killed in the action; 


NEAR XERES. 


41 


but some two hundred years afterwards a monu- 

*/ 

ment or sepulchral inscription was discovered in 
the church of a town called Visco in Portugal, 
saying “ Aqui yace Don Rodrigo, el ultimo de 
los Godos,” which throws doubt on the matter. 
The historian Conde, however, who, as far as he 
goes, is considered the best authority on the sub¬ 
ject, says that Don Rodrigo, the king of the Goths, 
was killed in the battle of the Guadalete by the 
hand of the Arab chief Taric, who sent his head 
to the Emperor Mirza or Mouza in Morocco, and 
it was from thence forwarded to Damascus, where 
the Grand Caliph lived. This would seem to 
place the death of Rodrigo in fight beyond doubt. 
The Moorish dominion ended in Spain on the 2d 
of January, 1492, when Grenada surrendered. 
Descendants of the Moors have, however, re¬ 
mained ever since in Andalusia. Near to Aya- 
monte, on the confines of Portugal, the natives all 
have the strongest features of the Arab, or rather 
Negro, race, and the kings of Spain in those parts 
allowed the inhabitants black judges to decide 
legal questions, which were pleaded in Arabic, 
long after the cause of the cross was victorious, 
and the Moslems extruded from their dominion. 
Short and easy as the distance is both from Xeres 
and the Carthuca to Port Saint Marys, it is not 
always safe; in fact, travelling in Spain, particu¬ 
larly if any divergence be made from the main 
roads, is and always has been inconvenient and 


42 


C A RTIIU SI A N CO N V E N T, 


dangerous. Alfieri, the Italian tragic poet, whom 
I have already quoted, observes that one who does 
not possess much health, money, and patience, can¬ 
not support a journey in Spain; and a friend oi mine, 
who had travelled in Egypt and Turkey, as well 
as over almost all Europe, wrote to me from Bay¬ 
onne, whilst I was at Madrid in 1822, in the fol¬ 
lowing terms: “After heartily thanking the Al¬ 
mighty for a safe exit from a country the most 
horrible and abominable in the universe for tra¬ 
vellers, particularly for foreigners, I sit down to 
say, &c. &c. ,? I have always thought that the 
dislike the Spanish have for foreigners proceeds 
from envy, and it appears to foreigners to be more 
barbarous and unjust in the Spanish than in others, 
(though indeed all nations prefer their countrymen, 
except perhaps the English, and look with jea¬ 
lousy on strangers,) for the reason that they are a 
people so far behind the rest of Europe in the 
arts, sciences, and liberal government. The Greek 
language is scarcely studied in a Spanish college; 
and in all Cadiz I was not able to find a Greek 
teacher, nor in Seville either. Their mathematics, 
navigation, engineering, natural science, all are 
languishing and have been languishing for years. 
Let any one read the small tract by Jovellanos, 
called “ Pan y Toros,” and see how that eloquent 
writer treats his own countrymen; besides being- 
well written, it is instructive, and shows Spain as 
she really was then and is now. The beauty of 

** *7 


NEAR XE11ES. 


43 


the Spanish women is more, I think, in what is 
concealed than in what is shown, and more in 
form than in face. Amongst the English there 
are more pretty faces in a proportion of three to 
one than amongst the Spanish, as far as I can 
judge; but a Spanish girl is formed at fifteen, 
indeed, in the south of Spain, even marriageable 
at twelve, and then they are plump, round, and 
well formed; whereas among the northern nations 
a female shape is rarely developed before twenty, 
and even then never has that breadth, fullness of 
bust, and short waist, which the Spanish form 
betrays. The grace of walk in the Spanish 
women is unquestionable, and has not been too 
much praised; it arises partly from study, but 
perhaps more from nature; they have, in Anda¬ 
lusia, almost all long legs for their height, conse¬ 
quently little weight to carry in proportion, and 
their insteps are remarkably thick and muscular, 
and though rising high, the sole is flat to the 
ground, whilst their feet are small, and ankles 
very strong; this enables them to spring from the 
haunches, to walk firm, and to be elastic and 
graceful in their gait. The way of holding their 
heads, handling their fans, and all their other 
little captivating arts, are a species of heritage 
from mothers to daughters, and go back for their 
origin as far perhaps as the language .they speak. 
The climate of Andalusia has been deservedly 
praised, and the climate and the women are what 


44 


CARTHUSIAN CONVENT, 


all travellers dwell on with satisfaction, when 
suffering under the various inconveniences and 
exactions incidental to a residence in the country. 
These are the green spots in the desert, the sweet 
drops in the salt ocean. The seasons, however, 
must be watched with care; the air is very pene¬ 
trating in all places that I have visited; and in 
Cadiz, which is considered to have the mildest 
and most even temperature, there is a proverb 
that says, “ Put not on summer clothing till the 
fortieth day of May,” in other words, the 10th of 
June. I was attacked with rheumatism and gout 
by wearing summer trowsers in March, although 
the weather in Cadiz in that month is warmer 
than an English July. I have experienced Fe¬ 
bruary and March as the most unpleasant months 
for wind and rain, as also December this year, 
which has indeed differed in season from most; 
generally the weather in March is warm and 
genial; very often it is found to be so in January; 
however, any one ma'y be sure of a delightful and 
hot climate from April to December, and the re¬ 
maining four months are very supportable, parti¬ 
cularly for the inhabitants of the north. I may 
remark that the Levant or east wind varies in 
complexion with the seasons; in winter it brings 
cold, and in summer heat; yet it is not considered 
unhealthy. The fogs at night, and damp mists, 
are to be avoided throughout the year. 

I am now on the point of leaving Spain, a 


NEAR XERES. 


45 


country which in my very early days I looked to 
as a distant, romantic, and almost inaccessible 
clime: it was first fixed in my attention by the 
stories of the invasion of its terrible Armada, 
and by a prejudice against Catholics, subse¬ 
quently by the combats of my countrymen with 
the French, and afterwards by the fables of its 
love stories, and the praise of its beauties. I have 
visited it four or five times, and it has always held 
a place in my interest, and has certainly some¬ 
what contributed to my pleasures. I therefore 
confess that, in spite of its faults, I quit it with 
some regret, hoping at some future period to re¬ 
turn, and to visit parts of it with which I am 
as yet unacquainted. 




( 4G ) 


CHAPTER VII. 


GIBRALTAR.—April 13, 1835. 


It lias been observed that a woman is generally 
the secret cause of most quarrels. One thing is 
certain, that the rape of the daughter of a petty 
nobleman, Count Julian of Ceuta, cost his king¬ 
dom to Roderick, her ravisher. Mousa, the 
Saracen governor of the western provinces of 
Africa, espoused Count Julian’s quarrel, invaded 
Andalusia, and erected the fortress of Gibraltar 
in the year 725 of the Christian era, under the 
conduct of his general, Tarif, from whom the 
mountain was called Gibel Tarif,—Gibel meaning 
mountain in the Moorish tongue. This rock, or 
mountain, is seven miles in circumference, and 
forms a promontory of three miles in length; it is 
joined to the continent by an isthmus of low sand, 
and lies in 36° of north latitude, and 5° west lon¬ 
gitude from the meridian of London. What was 
once only a barren fortress has now become an 
ornamental town, and taken precedence in the 
military scale of importance of Algeciras, which 
is nearly opposite, and was in ancient times a 
city of importance. Gibraltar has been more 




GIB HALT AII. 


47 


than a century in possession of the English. The 
garrison has a supply of food for seven years, and 
mounts more than seven hundred guns, which in 
case of need would require more than the whole 
collected force of the garrison for their working. 
I have heard that there are six hundred men daily 
on duty in the town. Those who are fond of 
crags, cannon, and geraniums, will here find 
abundant room for admiration. The Alameda is a 
delightful walk, but is almost deserted; the libra¬ 
ries are good, and that of the garrison contains a 
great supply of ancient Spanish literature, as well 
as many of the most valuable modern works on 
science and natural history. The only fruits 
which the soil supplies are lemons and grapes. 
Cattle are imported from Ireland and Barbary. 
Spain supplies some vegetables and fruit. Many 
of the merchants have country-seats at San 
Rocque, a Spanish town on an eminence, at about 
two leagues distance. The population is very 
mixed, and the English laws relating to foreigners 
and foreign trade very strict. The views from all 
the eminences are striking and grand; the Spanish 
and African coasts, with the sea between, fill up 
the distance. The passage to Tangiers and to 
Ceuta is only of a few hours’ duration, and there 
are daily opportunities of passing the straits. It is 
hardly to be expected that in a town dedicated 
to Bellona, the arts should be greatly cultivated, 
and I am not aware of any of the works of either 


48 


GIBRALTAR. 


painters or artists existing in Gibraltar; indeed, 
our possession is only interesting as a specimen of 
an almost impregnable fortress. Before the inven¬ 
tion of gunpowder, its natural position made it 
impregnable, and with the advancement of the 
science of war it has continued so. A few trees 
have been raised by artificial means, and the in¬ 
genuity of the English has in some degree pre¬ 
vailed against the impediments of nature; but 
barrenness is still the prominent feature in the 
aspect of the ground. Trade is active and brisk ; 
the price of provisions similar to that in England. 
A traveller who has seen the excavations in the 
rocks, which are armed with cannon, and Saint 
Michael's or Saint George’s cave, with its stalactic 
pillars, (the extent of which has never been as¬ 
certained,) will find his time hang heavy on a 
long sojourn. The view r along the Spanish coast 
to Gibraltar, as seen from the sea, is charming; 
and Trafalgar Point, which is noted by a martello 
tower, recalls to the patriot feelings of pride in 
the glory of the British arms, and sympathy for 
the immortal hero who fell in asserting the honour 
of the British flag, and securing the independence 
of liis country. The climate in Gibraltar during 
the three summer months is oppressively hot, and 
during the remainder of the year subject to fre¬ 
quent changes. The winter is rainy and stormy: 
during the month of last December the town 
was nearly overwhelmed by masses of stone de- 


GIBRALTAR. 


49 


taclied by the floods of rain which fell. As we 
approached Gibraltar we saw Apes’ Hill, on the 
African coast, to the right; Cabrita point, on the 
Spanish, to the left; and Gibraltar, or Calpe, in 
the centre. On our journey from Cadiz to Gi¬ 
braltar nothing particular occurred: we left the 
former place at about ten in the morning, and 
reached Gibraltar at about nine at night. We 
were immediately allowed to land ; but the vessel 
being very comfortable, I preferred remaining on 
board to changing my lodging for the night. 

Fresh-water springs abound at Gibraltar; there 
are several wells for the supply of the garrison and 
town, and there is one within fifty yards of the neu¬ 
tral ground on our side. There are scorpions on the 
rock, but they are not very numerous or hurtful. 
Ipecacuanha has been recommended as a specific 
against their bite. The venom of the tarantula 
sting is, they say, neutralized by the sound of 
music. I record these things as travellers’ stories; 
perhaps, as is said by Dr. Johnson of forewarn¬ 
ings and dreams, they are not to be too much 
trusted to, nor altogether disregarded. 

The introduction of steam navigation is both a 
great comfort and a great convenience; for what 
is more delightful than the certainty of passing 
quickly over the barren sea ? The company one 
has on board these vessels also contributes much to 
the pleasure of the voyage, and in some passages 
I have been delighted with my associates; on the 

E 


50 


GIBRALTAR. 


i 


present occasion the party consisted principally 
of officers proceeding to join their respective ships 
and regiments, with whom I had no ideas or sen¬ 
timents in common, and therefore I found my 
time hang heavy enough. All that I prayed for 
was fair winds and a quick passage ; and the 
commander of the vessel did every thing he could 
to render us comfortable on board. 




CHAPTER VIII. 


AT SEA. 


On the 14th we re-embarked. We passed Malaga 
and Almeria, and were at the Cape de Gata, or 
Horn, during the day of the 15th of April, and 
on the following, the 16th, came in sight of the 
African coast, opposite to Zerzahal, within about 
forty-five miles of Algiers. The passage we had 
made, thanks to steam, and the able management 
of the commander of his Majesty’s steam vessel 
Tartarus, was nearly four hundred miles in forty- 
eight hours, and during almost the whole of our 
voyage we were in sight of land. The ocean 
was in a perfect calm, and my feelings were 
alive to the recollections induced by the inte¬ 
resting and classic waters over which we sailed. 
Towards three in the afternoon of the same 
day we passed Shassorah, on the African coast, 
and were near enough to have a good view of 
the town, and the small mosque at a distance, 
erected by the Arabs to the memory of their holy 
On the morning of the 17th we were in 

*e 2 


men. 




52 


AT SEA. 


the bay of Bujeya. We observed cultivated 
fields on the African coast, rising almost to the 
summits of the hills, and the outlines of the rocks 
and mountains prettily varied and broken by 
bays and inlets, which intruded at intervals. We 
had long passed what were called the Granaries 
of the Romans, situated to the westward in Mo¬ 
rocco, but sufficient fertility was exhibited even 
in the spot under our inspection, to warrant the 
most favourable conclusion of the profits to be 
derived from the occupation of the Algerine ter¬ 
ritory. On the evening of the 17th it came on to 
blow from the north-east, and the temperature of 
the air fell quite to that of a northern climate, 
although we were coasting Africa; the night was 
stormy, and the vessel rolled disagreeably; the 
bad weather continued all the next day, the 
18th, on the evening of which we were at Galeta 
Islands. The navigation of the coast here re¬ 
quires considerable care, from the circumstance 
of there being many rocks to pass; the return 
vessels all keep out to the northward, and never 
approach Africa. I saw the commander’s anxi¬ 
ous countenance at dinner, for we had not seen 
the, sun for two days; our vessel also did not 
well obey the helm; the nights were pitchy 
dark, and had we run aground, we should have 
probably gone to pieces in a few minutes, and 
have all been drowned, without hope of escape. 


AT SEA. 


53 


unless some one had done as Ulysses says of 
himself, 

A vrap eyco, rpoinv ayicag k\tbv vtog afji^itXiacryjg, 

’YLvvrjfiap (pspofJirjr. 

When, however, we descried Galeta Island, his 
countenance brightened, and he was no longer in 
uncertainty about our course. We passed the 
Gulf of Tunis during the night, and on the morn¬ 
ing of the 19th were opposite to Cape Bon, 
having a fair wind and a calmer sea. We passed 
some low lands detached from the coast, called 
Zembrita. Locusts, which depopulate whole 
provinces in Africa, are here often driven into the 
sea and on the coast, and are known to infect the 
water for many leagues; they are of a brownish 
yellow colour, and variegated about the belly 
and legs with a bluish flesh colour. They are 
armed with jaws and furnished with feelers; 
their eyes are particularly dull, with perpendicu¬ 
lar streaks of white in them, besides which they 
have three transparent specks in the front of the 
head; on all the feet the claws are double, and 
the hind ones are formed for leaping, exactly 
like those of the common grasshopper. Some at¬ 
tribute the origin of the plague to the putrefac¬ 
tion of these vermin. The approach we made to 
Malta was round the island, and nothing can be 
less prepossessing than the view which Gozo and 
the rocks present from the sea. They strike the 


54 


AT SEA. 


visiter who sees them for the first time as dry, 
ragged, and barren stone, from which the rays of 
the sun are reflected with painful effect to the eye 
of the beholder, and have the appearance of ste¬ 
rility without being in any degree imposing. 
Those who travel, however, go to see new things, 
and I reconciled to myself the trouble of a voyage 
to see what was hardly worth seeing, with the 
consolation that my curiosity was at least grati¬ 
fied; and curiosity is indeed the great stimulant 
of life. On the 20th of April we arrived at 
Malta, and were condemned to five days’ qua¬ 
rantine for having touched at Gibraltar: but we 
had reached the 

“ Nj/trov ”£lyvyir}v. .. .evOa KaXv^/w 
Nattt ev7tX oKafiOQ, ^eivr] Oeuq." 

It is undoubtedly proper that the health of 
many should not be exposed for the convenience 
of a few, but the detention we experienced was 
entirely unnecessary, and though the accommo¬ 
dation in quarantine at Malta is very good, still 
the quarantine building is a prison, and little 
palatable to those who have already experienced 
the confinement of a ship, and long for free space 
to move in. On the 25th we were at liberty. 




( 55 ) 


CHAPTER IX. 


MALTA. —May 5, 18.35. 


The first thing I observed on entering Valetta 
was that our hackney coachman was what they 
call in Spain “ Echando corta Mangas” at 
another,—all who have visited Andalusia will un¬ 
derstand what I mean. This peculiarity of man¬ 
ners, trifling as it is, must have been of Moorish 
origin, as the Maltese are half Arabs, and their 
language is a dialect of those people, with whom 
they can with ease converse, and by whom they 
are understood. This being the Island of Calypso, 
where her grotto is pointed out to this day, I ex¬ 
pected great female beauty in a country where 
Ulysses was detained seven years by female fasci¬ 
nations, but found nothing in the streets save th£ 
sad reality of ugly faces among the women. I 
understand, however, that there are good looks 
amongst the higher orders, though they keep re¬ 
tired, and apart from the general run of society. 
The position of Malta is in 33° 40' longitude, and 
35° 54' latitude. It is similar in climate to Cadiz, 




56 


MALTA. 


but more in extremes. In winter the cold is much 
more severe, and for the three summer months 
the heat is very oppressive. The Sirocco, or east 
wind, almost dislocates the limbs. Ptolemy, the 
ancient philosopher, calls Malta part of Africa; 
Pliny and Strabo, on the contrary, consider it as 
an European island. Gozo is supposed to have 
formed part of Malta anciently, and to have 
been separated from it by an earthquake, as 
Sicily was from Italy, and Gibraltar from Africa. 
The breadth of Malta is twelve miles, in length 
twenty, and circumference sixty. La Valetta, 
which is the town now most frequented, and 
where the ships lie, is called after the Grand 
Master of that name, who founded it in 1566, 
though it was not completed till five years after¬ 
wards, by Paolo del Monte, his successor. 
Cotton was formerly grown here; but the prin¬ 
cipal culture at the present day is the mulberry 
tree, which thrives well, though it yields nothing 
in its produce of silk to that of Italy. There are 
also excellent fruits, and the finest medlars I 
ever tasted, resembling an apricot both in colour 
and size. The population of Malta and Gozo 
approaches to an hundred thousand inhabit¬ 
ants. Trade however is on the decline, and the 
arts are little encouraged. The original appella¬ 
tion of Malta is said to have been Melita, from 
the Greeks, who highly esteemed its honey. 
Uneven streets, with flights of steps; houses 


MALTA. 


57 


which in other countries would let for the prices 
of palaces, which they are in reality; — bells, 
more offensive than even those of Seville; drums, 
red coats and blue, “ I say, Jack,” heard at every 
turn;—English forms, in their graceless prudery of 
dress, dull poverty abroad, the prisons full, the 
churches empty, ignorance general, and discon¬ 
tent amongst the natives increasing;—such is the 
picture of the capital of Malta in the present 
day. The provisions are cheap, and the fortifica¬ 
tions twenty miles in extent. I visited Civita 
Vecchia, the ancient seat of government, and 
found it the city of the dead; a few beggars and 
swine were the occupants of the streets. The 
houses are fine, and the churches elegant. In 
the cathedral there are some pictures by Mal- 
thias Preti, called the Calabrese, which are tole¬ 
rable. It may not be amiss to mention that 
Malthias had two more names—Preti and Cala¬ 
brese. I mention this, as I formerly sometimes 
myself imagined that Malthias, Preti, and Cala¬ 
brese, were three different artists, whereas they 
are one and the same. I saw the grotto where St. 
Paul remained for three months, and where he is 
said to have extinguished the venom of the ser¬ 
pents in the island by the favour of God. He 
was shipwrecked on the shore of Malta, in the 
month of February, and lighting a fire to warm 
himself, of brushwood, a viper bit him. The bar¬ 
barous inhabitants expected him to die, as the 


58 


MALTA. 


reptile s bite was considered mortal; he reco¬ 
vered, was reverenced as a divinity, converted 
the natives, and from that moment the serpents 
were innoxious. Such are the traditions of the 
saints, such are the stories credited by the 
vulgar, and such are the harmless anecdotes that 
amuse the curious. The church of Saint John, at 
Valetta, built by the Grand Master Jean de Cas- 
siere, about the year 1508, was one of the richest 
in the world, and held the same rank for wealth 
in Christendom that the cathedral of Seville has 
done since. Amongst other plunder, the French 
melted down a silver lustre that had one hundred 
and ninety branches; the produce was approach¬ 
ing in value to sixty thousand dollars, each worth 
in English money about half-a-crown. A solid 
chain of gold which hung from the ceiling pro¬ 
duced an equal sum. Little now remains re¬ 
markable, save the Mosaics, and a picture by Ca¬ 
ravaggio, representing the decapitation of Saint 
John. Caravaggio, dark and turbulent as was his 
spirit, has embodied in this picture the colour of 
his own mind, and all about it is dark, sombre, 
and severe. It is however a fine painting, of 
large size, and I should imagine a good work to 
study for those who are desirous of being ac-. 
quainted with the manner of the master. His 
portrait of the Grand Master La Valetta, in the 
palace, is a fine production, but it has been in¬ 
jured, and though there is a simple severity in 



MALTA. 


59 


tiie position of the figure, and the treatment of 
the subject, (bring the full-length portrait of a 
man in armour,) yet has it neither the warmth of 
Titian, nor the grace of Vandyke. The life of 
Caravaggio is a romance. Unsteady and intrac¬ 
table, he fled from place to place, and, after a 
succession of violent deeds, terminated his life 
by a premature and unexpected death. His 
works, perhaps, have gained in interest, from the 
rare character of the man; I should, however, 
not prefer them to those of Spagnoletto. The 
walls of the church of Saint John are painted al¬ 
most totally by Malthias Preti, whom I have 
mentioned before; he is, however, a weak 
painter; the best of his works are to be seen in 
Italy, and he never rises above mediocrity. There 
is a portrait of the Grand Master Pinto, who 
ruled in Malta for thirty-two years, made of mo¬ 
saic in Rome, which is well executed, as is like¬ 
wise his Mausoleum, which also was sculptured in 
Rome, by a Maltese artist. In the palace there 
is something of the Cavaliere Massimo, who was 
pupil to Spagnoletto, or at least of the Neapo¬ 
litan School, and a fine painting by Guido, repre¬ 
senting Christ standing by the cross, of large 
. size and good execution, but it is not a pleasing 
picture, the Divinity being stern in aspect. 
Malta is famous for buildings, and from an emi¬ 
nence small villages and houses are to be seen in 
every direction. At Mosta, which is not far from 


GO 


MALTA. 


Civita Vecchia, a new church is in course of erec¬ 
tion, of magnificent form and dimensions, of 
which, however, the front is scarcely finished; 
and from an eminence above, on the 3rd of May, 
I distinctly saw the Sicilian coast. The gardens 
and the palace of San Antonio, the residence of 
the Grand Masters, and the Boschetto, formed by 
the Grand Master Yerdala, who was also made 
Cardinal at Rome, from the favour he enjoyed 
with the niece of the Pope, are likewise objects 
of interest. The Ditch of Porta Reale was made 
at the expense of Pope Pius the Sixth, and what 
is now called the Botanical Garden was the 
work of the Grand Master Lascasis, who is buried 
in the chapel of St. Michele, in the church of St. 
John. The following is the account of the great 
aqueduct. It was erected in 1615 by the Grand 
Master Alofe di Vignacourt,, for the benefit of the 
inhabitants in the south part of the island; its 
source is at a place commonly called “ Diar Han- 
dur,” and it runs by leaden pipes under ground, 
the water branching out in all the places through 
which it passes, till it reaches Yaletta, and com¬ 
municates with both the public and private cis¬ 
terns. It is 7424 yards long. I must say, how¬ 
ever beneficial this aqueduct may be, it is not to 
be compared with those of more ancient date, as 
seen in Spain and Italy; it however answers its 
purpose, and the constructor will be remembered 
with gratitude. The house of industry, by which 


MALTA. 


61 


the poor are clothed and hungry fed, is one of 
the fine establishments for which the island is 
indebted to the British. Let the proud, prodigal, 
and ambitious conquerors and kings, after the 
dissipation of millions, and the slaughter of tens 
of millions, look at these retreats for innocence 
and worth— 

“ Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.” 

The last Grand Master Ilompesch, eleven months 
after his elevation, ceded Malta to the French in 
the year 1798, but they offended the natives, who 
revolted, and placed themselves under the go¬ 
vernment of the British, being too weak to sup¬ 
port themselves alone. Malta has been suc¬ 
cessively under the following governments:— 
the Phoenicians, to whom is attributed the 
Giant’s Tower, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, 
the Romans, the Vandals, the Goths, Belisarius 
of the Eastern empire, the Arabs, the Sici¬ 
lians, the Germans, the Order of Saint John— 
the members of which had been expelled by 
Solyman from Rhodes, and were placed here by 
Charles the Fifth—the French, and the English. 
Between Malta and Gozo there is a small island 
called Comino, famous for nothing but corn, 
about one mile in breadth and three in length; 
it was anciently called Ephestia. Gozo, called by 
the Saracens Guadesh, and by the Greeks Gaulos, 
has a population the half of that of Valetta, 



62 


MALTA. 


namely, fifteen thousand souls; it enjoys good 
air, the soil is fertile, many parts of the island 
are pleasant, and it contains more trees than 
Malta. Cicero preferred its honey even to that of 
Mount Hybla, and it redeems the character ol 
want of beauty which is observed in Malta; in 
Gozo almost all the women are handsome, with 
fine forms. There are some buildings in the island 
remarkable on account of their antiquity, and 
amongst them the Giant’s Tower. This extra¬ 
ordinary erection is of a circular figure; the 
stones are polygonous, irregular, and, like the 
Druidical remains, without cement; the greatest 
part of them are eight or nine Parisian feet long, 
and six broad. Its construction is by some 
called Saturnian or Cyclopean; two large stones 
of eighteen feet in length, and six in breadth, 
form the entrance of the edifice. Bones have 
been found here of a large size, and some have 
imagined it to have been the habitation of a race 
of giants; the excavator, Mr. Somerville, is of 
opinion that it was a temple erected by the Phoe¬ 
nicians in honour of the goddess Altharothee, 
whose efhgy was found expressed on different 
coins. Gozo has always shared in the govern¬ 
ment and destinies of Malta. There is good 
shooting of quails in the island, and the British 
governor retires from Malta to Gozo for repose 
and recreation. The chief town is called Ra- 
bato, and there are six villages. The passage is 


I 


MALTA. 63 

generally uncertain from Malta to Gozo, and if 
the bad weather sets in, a tour of the island must 
be made to return to Valetta; indeed, such oc¬ 
currences often happen. Since my residence in 
the island of Malta I have found the weather 
chilly, and at dinner with one of the gentlemen 
settled here, we had a fire in May. The gout, 
my old enemy and constant attendant, has tor¬ 
mented me continually since my arrival, and I was 
glad to hear of the expected steamer to take me 
to Sicily. The opera at Valetta is an Italian and 
English one, and there is an Italian or rather 
French prima donna , and an English one, which 
two are often at war, as may be supposed. The 
English, as matter of nationality, support the 
latter. The theatre is neat and orderly; the per¬ 
formance but moderate. I cannot say that I 
think there is much at Valetta to render a long- 
residence agreeable, and the climate, though cer¬ 
tainly a fine one, is not one which wards off 
rheumatic affections, being very changeable in 
intensity both of heat and cold. Those who are 
fond of the formal English will find them in 
Malta, and the Maltese society is dull enough. 
I have been told, that when known the Maltese 
people are very agreeable and very kind. There 
is a proverb, “ two Genoese to a Maltese, and 
two Maltese to a Greek." I have not experi¬ 
enced, however, any of their knavery in a great 
degree, but they are commonly reckoned prone 


G4 


MALTA. 


to imposition. I may however note, that in 
contradiction to this received opinion, I have 
heard the Italians reproach the Maltese with 
stupidity, and though want of honesty and stu¬ 
pidity sometimes go together, yet the dull man 
does not generally pass for a good knave. There 
is a Maltese regiment of about five hundred 
strong, which consists almost totally of natives of 
the island. The Maltese have laws of their own, 
and there is also an admixture of English juris¬ 
prudence. Causes, however, cannot be removed, 
I believe, from the courts at Malta to those in 
England. The code of laws in Malta is the 
Code de Rohan; but this is undergoing revision, 
and the courts are to have native judges, instead 
of English, who have held the office till now. 
The religion is Catholic. The language of the 
island is a dialect of Arabic, but it is even more 
copious, or rather has more sounds, than the 
mother-tongue. It has, I believe, no literature, 
but may be studied by the Arabic characters; 
many Italian words have crept into common con¬ 
versation. It is very ungrateful to the ear, being 
guttural and harsh. A gentleman occupied in 
framing a Maltese Grammar and Dictionary, in 
order to render it a fixed language, says that he 
proposes to form two sounds, which neither the 
Latin nor the Arabic characters express, by the 
addition of points to the Arabic characters. In 
any case, however, as indeed happens in Arabic, 


MALTA. 


65 


these sounds must be previously learnt by ear, 
before any marks can convey their meaning. I 
do not subjoin these letters so marked, because I 
cannot, by English characters, convey their sound. 
I have been told that the Armenian Alphabet 
gives sounds to the Turkish language more clearly 
than the Arabic character in some words; al¬ 
though the Turks use the Arabic character in al 
matters of business and pleasure, perhaps some 
Armenian characters might be introduced with 
advantage into the Arabic alphabet, for the use of 
those who think it worth while to study the Mal¬ 
tese. To those read in Homer I have not, per¬ 
haps, sufficiently mentioned the Cave—for it is 
now a mere cave, and all beauty, if ever there 
was any, has vanished— 

evda Ko Xvxbio vaiev kvTvXouafiOQ . 

nor have I noted either her gardens or meads, but 
really so barren a soil can only appear beautiful 
in the text of the poet, which I subjoin, for the 
curiosity of those who choose to visit the place 
themselves, and contrast the ancient beauty with 
the sad modern reality. The poetry, however, 
will alone give the place an interest, and perhaps 
the enthusiast, who recites the lines on the spot, 
may conjure a vision to himself of ancient love 
liness:— 

tfiev’ ocbpa rlkyci cnrkoc 'iketo, tm evl vvfi(f)ri 

rcu£v EVTrXuKcifjioQ' n)y & ev$o$i tet[jlev k&aav, 

F 


00 


MALTA. 


7rvp fiEV £7 T EG^CipC(f)lV fJLEya Ka'lETO, T7]X60l r'ofyr) 
Keeps T SVKEUTOIO, Bvs T , UVU vf/GOV OCOJCEl, 
caio/JEVtov' >/ c’ evSov aoi^iascr' ottl KaXrj, 
i’TOV ETTOiyOflEVI1, XpVffEtr] KEpKlS’ IKpClLVEV. 
v\r) %£ GTEEOQ a/jl(J)l 7 T£(f)VK£l TTrfXE^UMGa, 

K\r/$pr] r, aiyEigog te, Kal Evu>^r]r kvitu piGGOg. 
£V$Cl $£ T Opi'l$£Q TawaiTTTEpOl EVVci&VTO, 

GKCoTTEQ T , iprjKEQ TE, TaVVyXbJGGOl TE Kopwvctl 
elvdXiai, T-rjaiv te SaXaGGia spyit hejjltjXev. 

7/ C aVTS TETCIVVGO 7T£pl <77 TELHQ yXa(f)VpO~lO, 

yfispig yjSwojGa, te$i']Xei $£ ’ratyvXijai' 

KptjVClL & eIeITJQ TTLGVpEQ fJEOV vficiTl XEVKU), 

xXrjGiat ciXXrjXiov TETpafiixivai dXXvhg dXXrj’ 

d/ji(pi £e Xe ijitivEQ [iciXciKOL 'is, rj^e geXivs, 

%7]XeOV' £V$Cl K ETCEITCL Kal ClSaVClTOQ 7 TEp £7 TeX0o)V 
$r}>IGCllTO Iciov, KOI TEp^ElTj (f)p£GlV 7JGIV. 

£V$a TUQ $71£~lTO diaiCTOpOQ ’ Apy£l(f)OVTt]Q. 



( G? ) 


CHAPTER XI. 


AT SEA. 


On Thursday, the 6th of May, 1 embarked on 
board the Real Ferdinando Neapolitan steamer, 
and on the morning of Friday, the 7th, we were 
in Syracuse Harbour. This town, which was 
once able to maintain an army of 100,000 foot 
and 10.000 horse, and set the Romans at de¬ 
fiance for three years, though headed by Mar- 
cellus, is now nothing more than a small fishing 
town. Its situation, as seen from the Harbour, 
is pretty, and the adjacent country seems fertile 
and romantic; it is almost on an island, and ap¬ 
peared to me a little like Cadiz. One of the 
gentlemen on board, who had lately returned 
from the East, said it put him much in mind of 
an Arabian town. We exhibited a clean bill of 
health, but it bore the remark of a vessel being 
in quarantine at Malta from Egypt, several of 
whose crew had died of the plague; this was suf¬ 
ficient for the nervous health Committee to refuse 
us pratique; all our remonstrances were in vain, 
until orders should be received from Palermo, 

f 2 




G8 


AT SEA. 


which it would require nearly a week to obtain. 
We therefore determined to proceed to Messina, 
from which place an answer might reach us in 
one day. We accordingly sailed in the evening, 
and arrived at Messina on the following morning. 
We were refused pratique, in consequence of the 
decision at Syracuse, and were examined in suc¬ 
cession by a doctor of the town. A favourable 
report was however forwarded to Palermo, an 
answer returned on Monday, and on Tuesday 
morning, the 11th of May, we disembarked, and 
proceeded to the Hotel della Gran Bretagna, at 
Messina. This last detention was even more an¬ 
noying and unjust than the one at Malta; 
patience, however, is a virtue that is no where 
more tried than in travelling, and indeed it is as 
necessary to the traveller as his letter of credit or 
his passport. I found the weather bad, and the 
passage disagreeable and tedious, and an attack 
of gout obliged me immediately to take to my 
bed on reaching land. We had rain in torrents, 
with cold for three days out of the five; they 
however said that the season this year had 
changed, and some gentlemen from Syria and 
from Greece assured me they had encountered 
nothing in the East save snow and ice. Great 
ancient names are still extant among the Italians; 
the steward of our steam-boat was called Virgil. 
Care should be taken by all travellers not to ap¬ 
proach Sicily from any port that is the least sus- 


AT SEA. 


69 


pected of sickness, as the authorities will send 
them to Malta to perform quarantine; and what I 
have already recounted will enable them to judge 
how delicate the Sicilian boards of health are in 
admitting vessels, even from their favourite port. 
During the time the cholera existed at Gibraltar, 
although Malta was perfectly free from the com¬ 
plaint, a long quarantine was insisted upon, re¬ 
straint was laid on trade; and, commerce from 
that port, which is very great with the island, 
suffered material injury on that account. 



( 70 ) 


CHAPTER XII. 


MESSINA.—May 1G, 1835. 


Whoever has driven out at Barcelona finds pre¬ 
cisely the same plants and fields, divided in the 
same way, as at Messina. The mulberry, fig, and 
cactus, abound here, with olive-trees and vines. 
The climate in general is warm, but by no means 
hot, at this time of year; besides, the breeze 
from the sea always gives it a refreshing coolness. 
There is a pleasant promenade as far as Faro 
Point, which is at ten miles’ distance, where the 
giant heads of Pelorus terminate, and give their 
name to the Cape. Those who visit the moun¬ 
tains to the west of Messina, will find nature in its 
savage wildness,—rocks, precipices, and caverns; 
all, indeed, that may be anticipated from a soil 
often rent by earthquakes. Hamilcar, the Car¬ 
thaginian general, took Messina by assault, and 
levelled it with the ground. Dionysius the elder 
rebuilt it. It was devastated by the plague in 
1743, and nearly ruined by an earthquake in 1783 
It has, however, risen again beautiful from its 
ruins. Scylla, so often sung by the j^oets, is a 





MESSINA. 


71 


high rock, rising rugged and perpendicular from 
the sea, which now washes its base on the Cala¬ 
brian coast, opposite to Faro Point in Sicily. On 
its summit there is a fort, and a small hamlet 
which bears the same name, and extends to the 
base: the six-headed monster of Homer is no 
longer seen, and a brilliant sky, not dark clouds 
and mists, form the pure serene concave of heaven. 
There is a lunar tide in the straits, and in the 
canal of Messina there is occasionally troubled 
water; but the whirlpool of Charybdis now occa¬ 
sions no apprehension, even to large fishing-boats. 
Indeed, it would pass unnoticed, were it not from 
our being inspired with reminiscences of anti¬ 
quity. Its site is distant from Scylla thirteen 
miles,—not, as described by Homer, only an ar¬ 
row’s flight! We are not however necessarily to 
suppose that what is not to be found now may 
not have existed in the time of Homer; the pro¬ 
mised land, which was at the epoch of the Jewish 
dynasty as fertile as the cultivated parts of Egypt 
are now, has been overwhelmed with sand, and 
is wholly desert; and this great change took 
place within a space of time much less remote 
from our age than when Ulysses was supposed to 
have lost his fleet off the Sicilian coast. The vol¬ 
canic nature of this part of the globe may have 
caused the change of currents, and indeed the 
change of continent, and may have now made a 
safe passage of what was once a dangerous one. 


72 


MESSINA. 


Messina can boast an eminent sculptor, and friend 
of the great Michel Angelo, in Gagini, who was 
born in the year 1480, and lived to a very great 
age. He has not perhaps the imposing grandeur 
of the Italian, but may rather be said to follow, 
in grace of statuary expression, the delicate taste 
and feeling of Raphael’s pencil. The pulpit in 
the great cathedral is by him, and is composed of 
two solid pieces of marble, beautifully worked, 
although the outline of the ornaments has been 
chipped in places through the neglect of its guar¬ 
dians. The cathedral, which is now the only re¬ 
maining part of the larger edifice, having lost its 
steeple in the great earthquake, presents rather 
the appearance of a Moorish building. It has a 
body with two wings, which in the inside form 
aisles, and are supported by twenty-four pillars of 
Egyptian granite, of about four feet diameter, by 
nearly twenty in height, all one solid piece. The 
great bell, which fell with the spire, has been 
converted into an equestrian statue of Charles the 
Third of Spain, which is on a pedestal in the 
small square fronting the cathedral. This bell 
was of immense size, being nearly sixty feet in 
circumference, and sixteen villages in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Messina could hear it when tolled. 
Close to the great altar hangs a standard which 
the ill-fated Murat displayed on the coast of 
Sicily at the time he landed in Calabria. It 
bears the inscription of “ Murat, King of Naples 


MESSINA. 


73 


and Sicily.” This now serves merely as a me¬ 
mento of ill fortune; had his attempt been crowned 
with success, it would have been consecrated and 
hallowed as the standard of a hero. One of the 
members of the church invented an ingenious 
dial, by introducing through an aperture in its 
roof the rays of the sun, which are reflected on 
the marble below, and this is graduated so as to 
show the hours. I observed no pictures worth 
notice; but the great altar is very fine, besides 
the splendour of the gilding, it is remarkable for 
being covered with beautiful specimens of “ pie- 
tra dura” and lapis lazuli,-and the carved wood¬ 
work is also good. I visited the Franciscan 
church of the Capuchins, which is interesting 
from its beautiful situation; it commands a charm¬ 
ing view of the straits and Calabrian coast. Its 
members live on charity, but are enabled to admi¬ 
nister bread and soup daily to the poor, who 
throng there sometimes to the number of two 
hundred; the males and females have alternate 
days. The church contains two good pictures of 
the Nativity, one of which is a known Caravaggio, 
and another, a little painting of the Transfigura¬ 
tion, forming the door to an oratory in one of the 
chapels, is called by Raphael; this, however, I 
doubt; from what I have seen of it, I should 
rather attribute it to Garofalo; by whomsoever 
painted, it is very beautiful. I visited the collec¬ 
tion of the Signor Grano, but saw nothing in his 


74 


MESSINA. 


gallery much to be remarked, save a head of our 
Saviour, attributed to Polidoro. In the church of 
the Cardalois there is a painting over the altar by 
a pupil of Polidoro, called Aidobrandi; I cannot 
say that it pleased me much: it is a representa¬ 
tion of the Epiphany, but is very cold in colour 
and hard in drawing. On our entrance I saw the 
body of a man lying on cushions in the dress of 
the day, with the face covered, which they were 
going to bury. I thought at first he slept; but in 
a few minutes a wooden box was brought in, the 
body was raised, and lifted into it by the bystand¬ 
ers, a string of beads was thrown upon the hands, 
and the lid of the box closed with two hooks. In 
this simple form he was to be consigned to the 
grave, prayers having been already chaunted for 
his soul. . He had, however, attained a full maturity 
of age; his life had been prolonged beyond the 
calculation of the Psalmist, and more than eighty 
winters had bleached a beard now never to stow 
again. I.confess I look with pain on burials and 
on deaths; on 

The first dark day of nothingness, 

The last of danger and distress, 

when hopes and fears and tumultuous passions, 
all that agitates and afflicts and delights mankind, 
are swallowed up together in the dark cavern of 
the grave, no room being left for amendment of 
life, no opportunity to repair the wrongs inflicted 


/ 


MESSINA. 75 

on their fellow men. In the Museum there is a 
school for children on the Lancasterian system, 
but it is languishing; the gallery too contains a 
miserable collection of pictures. There is one 
among them, of Christ casting out the Devils, 
which seems to be by Salvator Rosa, and a large 
picture of some scripture mystery by BoccaNegra, 
an imitator of Murillo, and indeed a painter of 
some merit, and I thought these two the best in 
the collection. The last painting represents a 
friar holding a cross in the air, with another to 
his left in meditation on the ground; angels are 
assisting, of which there are a pretty group above 
in the sky. Those who wish to enjoy a view 
equally fine with that of the Capuchin convent, 
should visit the monastery of Ladies of San Gre¬ 
gorio, and they will be amply satisfied. The 
frescos in the church certainly have merit; they 
are by Filocamo, and done in the year 1723. 
There are also three large pictures in oil by Quag- 
liata, one representing San Gregorio in medita¬ 
tion, which I think the best amongst them, ano¬ 
ther of the Madonna del Carmine, and a third of 
the Yirgine Addolorata. These three are all 
works of composition, and though not comparable 
in excellence with the high works of the Italian 
school, are nevertheless worth the trouble of a 
walk to see. The whole of the church is much 
ornamented with works in pietra dura, but I 
confess I prefer handsome and plain marble to 


76 


MESSINA. 


any Mosaic work that is not of the first quality, 
and even then I think that variegated colours in 
a place of worship take away from the solemn ap¬ 
pearance which it should with propriety present, 
and that such ornaments should be secondary, 
and not principal, in the effect, and used, if at all, 
in the details of the establishments, but never 
appear in standards and pillars, as I find they 
often do in this country. All, however, is matter 
of taste, and what appears to me tawdry and me¬ 
retricious, may to others seem elegant. Among 
the remarkable objects at Messina, and indeed all 
over Sicily, are the horns of the cattle, which grow 
sometimes to a length of four feet; the animals 
themselves are very fine, and are used for drawing 
carts and domestic purposes, and with these huge 
appendages they have a most imposing effect. In 
the houses these horns are used for ornaments to 
sideboards and tables. The fish is very good at 
Messina, and I am told that the flavour depends 
on the different kinds being caught within the 
straits. They have the tunny in addition to almost 
every other sort, and the red mullets are almost 
as exquisite as the far-famed ones of Cadiz. The 
general mode of conveyance in Messina is on 
mules or donkeys, or in carriages. The hire of a 
donkey in English money is about eightpence an 
hour. There are no horses let for hire. The 
town is well supplied with water, and there are 
many fountains. Ice is procured from Calabria 


V 


MESSINA. 


77 


or the adjacent mountains, and snow appears on 
the opposite hills of Italy even at this date, the 
18th of May. There are about 80,000 inhabi¬ 
tants in Messina, and many foreign families are 
established as merchants. There is a subscrip¬ 
tion reading-room, and billiard table, to which 
foreigners are admitted without any difficulty. 
The theatre is open only during part of the year. 
I am told it is not well supplied with singers, 
their pay being very small. Living here is cheap, 
provisions and wine good, and in the town of 
Reggio, which is on the opposite coast, a single 
person may be boarded and found in every thing 
at the rate of about four pounds sterling per 
month. Messina has no urban militia, but fur¬ 
nishes two regiments of the line to the army. 
The supreme court of justice is at Palermo, to 
which all criminal and weighty causes are referred 
for decision. The code of laws is the same as 
that of Naples. All that is most interesting at 
Messina I have seen and noted; there is nothing 
antique of interest, and as the other towns of 
Sicily have attractions, I shall proceed to-morrow 
with a guide on my road to Catania. Of the cha¬ 
racter of the Messinese it can hardly be supposed 
that I should be able to form a judgment from 
our slight acquaintance, but their exterior at least 
is very bland and kind; they are perhaps less pre¬ 
cise and ceremonious in their language and deport¬ 
ment than the other natives of the island; but I 


78 


MESSINA. 


have heard, and can believe it, that they are 
warm-hearted and sincere. It requires, however, 
time to know them, and they are at a first ac¬ 
quaintance rather reserved with strangers. Mes¬ 
sina is in the 38th degree of latitude. The patron 
saint of the town is the Madonna della Lettera. 



( 79 .) 


CHAPTER XIII. 


GIARDINA—TAORMINA.— May 21, 1835. 


I left Messina for Catania yesterday morning. 
The first place I passed of note was Santo Ste- 
fano, on the sea-shore, which together with the 
Marina of Mirle, is famous for its growth of 
strawberries, which supply Messina. We passed 
the Torre della Scaletta, noted in the old times 
as a fort to check the attacks of the Turks, and 
dined at Saint Paula, which is at a distance of 
about twenty miles from Messina. We had a 
most luxurious dish of fish, called in Italian luna, 
for which I do not find the English name; it ap¬ 
proaches somewhat to sole, but has a richer 
flavour. We proceeded from St. Paula with inten¬ 
tion to sup at Giardina, which is at the foot of 
Taormina, having passed by the small hamlet of 
Turei, celebrated for its manufacture of maccaroni. 
The process is to drive the paste through aper¬ 
tures in a brazen plate, and cut it off by such 
lengths, long or short, as are desired. In 
the machine which we saw they were cutting it 
short, allowing the length of only about an inch 




80 


GIARDINA. 


for each piece. The paste is of wheat, but not 
the same as that of bread, but is what called in 
Italian semola . Four miles further on our road 
we passed Cape Saint Alessi, an enormous per¬ 
pendicular rock, steep on every side, close to 
which the road runs, and which commands a 
view of the small town of Forzo di Agro, placed 
like an eagle’s nest on the summit of a crag. 
The foundations, however, of the fort of Saint 
Alessi are gradually giving way, and the time is 
perhaps not far distant when the whole fabric 
will be precipitated into the sea below, as has 
happened with many firmer-based edifices on 
this romantic but treacherous coast. We reached 
Giardina at about seven in the evening, where we 
slept in a bad inn that all preceding travellers 
have had the mania of commending in the name- 
book as excellent, a species of misrepresentation 
which, though proceeding from kindness to the 
landlord, is absolutely culpable; for when all 
praise their reception, the host will become even 
more remiss in his care and attention to his guests. 
Inserting the name at all in a book left at a public 
house of entertainment is ill-judged, or tending 
only to gratify idle curiosity; and the house of 
passports is a degrading custom, as the honest 
man is exposed to the same restraints and ob¬ 
servation as the pickpocket and felon. It may 
be a question whether it be not better that some 
inconvenience should be undergone by all, and 


TAORMINA. 


81 


so criminals and villains watched ; but for centu¬ 
ries passports were never thought of, and we are 
indebted to the system of police of Fouch6, the 
minister of Buonaparte in France, for the introduc¬ 
tion of this fetter on the personal liberty of man¬ 
kind on the continent. We left Giardina at eight 
o’clock on the following morning, having in¬ 
spected the amphitheatre of Taormina; reached 
Acci at one, where we dined, and proceeded to 
Catania, where we arrived at six o’clock in the 
afternoon, being a distance of about thirty-one 
miles from Giardina. We had accomplished our 
journey very well and easily with the same horses, 
as there are no relays of post-horses in Sicily. 
Acci is a neat town, and indeed the handsomest 
I found on the road to Catania. It has a cathe¬ 
dral, but contains no pictures of much merit. 
Its patron saint is Santa Verona. To antiqua¬ 
rians, the great point of attention in this journey 
is Taormina, formerly a city of note, of which 
now, however, nothing ancient remains save the 
theatre. Dionysius the elder destroyed a town 
called Naxus in this neighbourhood; but the in¬ 
habitants were united by Andromachus, father of 
Timseus, the historian (all of whose compositions 
are lost), about forty years afterwards, and the 
city of Taurominion was founded on the hill 
Tauron by him. It is now the abode of wretch¬ 
edness, and consists only of a few modem cot¬ 
tages ; but the theatre remains superior to the 


g 


82 


ROAD FROM MESSINA 


dilapidating course of ages, and fancy might 
almost again people its stage and galleries at 
this remote period of time. From the remains, 
we find that the seats were fashioned from the 
solid rock, and covered with white marble. It 
possessed that requisite for all theatres—a fine 
echo, and was six hundred and twenty-four feet 
in circumference. Seen from the road, it has 
a fine effect, and adds much to the pleasure of 
the view. The whole of the road between Mes¬ 
sina and Catania is lovely, and at this time of 
the year the flowers and verdant shrubs gratify 
by their odour and their aspect both the sight 
and the smell. The visual and the olfactory 
nerves are held in a soft enchantment; the cli¬ 
mate is warm, and tempered by the sea, which 
is always in sight; indeed every sense is pleased. 
All along the road there are fruit trees, and the 
mulberry exists in great perfection as food for 
the silk-worm. We saw a large quantity of the 
oleaster, with which the Sicilians amuse them¬ 
selves by drying and making it into snuff for 
carnival time. The powder appears like real 
tobacco, and is not very pungent, but when once 
taken, causes interminable sneezing, to the great 
diversion of the unaffected. The coast of Cala¬ 
bria forms a magnificent object, terminating in 
the Capo Sparlivento, and is seen to advantage 
as far as Giardina, after which it fades in dis¬ 
tance. The points of view which struck me 


TO CATANTA. 


83 


most on our way were from the Capo cli Sant’ 
Alessi, previous to arriving at Giardina, and at 
the Ponte di Caltabiano, after leaving it; the 
latter affords the most favourable aspect of Etna 
on the road. Of this mountain, which rises gra¬ 
dually from the ocean, whose waist is braced 
with snow, whose feet are sprinkled with every 
flower and sweet-scented shrub, and whose head 
is bound with burning rocks and minerals, it is 
no hyberbole to say, that in my opinion a journey 
to Sicily from England is repaid merely by this 
view of this recumbent giant. Etna is more 
worth seeing than all that is contained of the same 
nature in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Our home 
scenery sinks into miniature and toy-shop repre¬ 
sentation, in comparison with this and with the 
Pic du Midi in France. In Switzerland we want 
the relief of the larger expanse of water, for the 
lakes are nothing in comparison to the moun¬ 
tains; but here we have a majestic mountain 
and a mighty element, the sea, in immediate 
contiguity and contrast. Vesuvius is striking, 
but has not the breadth of base of Etna. After 
leaving Messina, the soil is composed of ferru¬ 
ginous clay as far as the Capo di Sant’ Alessi; 
after that point it is of clay and chalk, and then 
succeed beds of volcanic matter and lava, which, 
however, contain many spots very favourable for 
cultivation. Towards the interior of the country, 

g 2 


84 


ROAD TO CATANIA. 


near to the small hamlets of Ali and the Fiume 
di Nisi, there are mountains which used to pro¬ 
duce copper, silver, and lead. Pieces of money 
have been coined from them, with the motto 
“ Ex visceribus meis haec funditur.” 




( ) 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CATANIA.— May 24, 1835. 


I have visited the far-famed monastery of the 
Benedettini, of which all the friars are of gentle 
blood, and have each his own domestic. I have 
heard the organ in its church, under which the 
modest constructor, a Calabrian priest named 
Donato, reposes, and a simple stone marks his 
cold abode. I have admired the state entrance 
to the convent, which is all of white marble, both 
staircase, pillars, and balustrades. I have seen 
no picture of any value. Among many bad 
ones, there are two in the church which are tole¬ 
rable, namely, Saint Gregory approving the com¬ 
mission of the Augustine order, by Camuccini, a 
modern artist, and Saint Benedetto receiving the 
sons of a Roman Emperor into the bosom of the 
Church, by Tofanelli. The members of the con¬ 
vent are eighty in number. Their cloisters and 
habitations are on a splendid scale. The garden 
is formed on a bed of lava, and communicates 
with the edifice by a small bridge. The fiery 
fluid of Etna, in the year 1669, flowed past this. 




86 


CATANIA. 


sacred building at a few yards distance, but 
harmed it not, and the holy men have turned the 
platform of black lava into an ornamental series 
of parterres. There are many hedges of cypress 
and box, many fantastic figures in yew, and 
handsome beds of tulips, with trellis work of 
roses. It put me much in mind of the garden 
attached to the Alcazar at Seville. The same 
productions and the same plan reigns here as 
in Spain. The museum was formed by a “ par 
nobile fratrum,” Scamacco and Amico. There are 
old pots, lachrimatories, bronzes, and most inde¬ 
cent priapuses of every form and size, but nothing 
struck me as very beautiful, save the bas-relief, 
representing a girl drawn by force to initiation in 
the mysteries of Bacchus. The jolly god leads 
the way, and the attendants follow with the 
damsel, whose Reluctance and modesty are well 
expressed. I saw their collection of pictures, 
which is in the same room, and one called by Ca¬ 
ravaggio, which is no more than a bad copy of a 
picture of Christ at the sepulchre, by Spagno- 
letti, which is in my possession, and was pur¬ 
chased by me at the sale of an eminent collector 
at Aix, in the south of France, in the year 1832. 
They also showed me a Last Supper, supposed to 
be anterior to Raphael, and which is in my opi¬ 
nion by Morales, a Spanish painter, called the 
Divine, from his having always chosen his sub¬ 
jects from the family of our Saviour or the saints. 


CATANIA. 


87 


I never, however, saw a Morales of that size and 
with so many figures, but there are heads in it 
decidedly by him. Whoever looks into the Guide 
Book of Sicily by the Abbate Francesco Ferrara, 
will find a very different account told of the two 
pictures I allude to, yet I respectfully but de¬ 
cidedly take pleasure to differ from the Abbate, 
and, as Crabtree says in the School for Scandal, 
though his account may be the more particular, I 
believe mine is the right one after all. There is 
no catalogue to the Museum, and indeed the paint¬ 
ings are scarcely worth one; but there are some 
explanatory cards attached to different objects, 
which only serve to mislead the visiters. I cannot 
say that I found the organ in the church so fine as 
either those of Haerlem, Rotterdam, or Seville; 
but it is very pleasing, and the tones most har¬ 
monious. In the chapels there are many pillars 
of verde antique, cased over lava. I find here 
the Sicilian mode of counting time. Half an 
hour after sun-set their reckoning begins, when 
they count on till a similar hour next day, up to 
twenty-four. This to a stranger seems confused, 
but to those habituated is plain enough; indeed 
it is as accordant to the distribution of time as 
our mode, for how often is it that the sun has 
twelve hours' empire, and the moon an equal 
number?—only twice a year. I went, after visit¬ 
ing this monastery, to the ancient baths, which 
are supposed to be coeval with the period when 


88 


CATANIA. 


Marcellus, on his return from Syracuse, built a 
gymnasium for the town, as mentioned by Plu¬ 
tarch, and which no doubt remains still connected 
with these baths. The stream of the Ammiano, 
the present river, is supposed to have supplied 
these baths with water. All the ancient inscrip¬ 
tions and monuments have been removed to his 
collection by the Principe Ignazio di Biscari, who 
was the most active investigator of the ancient 
remains of Catania. What is left of the theatre 
is in accordance with the history of its ancient 
grandeur, but all its columns and ornaments were 
pillaged with barbarian blindness, to build and 
adorn the cathedral, by Count Ruggieri. Its 
length in diameter of the internal superficies, 
from one wall to the other, is three hundred and 
ten feet. The lowest corridor exists entire. To 
the west there was an aperture, which leads by a 
staircase to the Odeum, a small theatre of one 
hundred and forty-five feet diameter. The plan 
of this interesting monument has been illustrated 
by Signor Musumici. Catania had a large theatre 
when the Athenians came a second time against 
Syracuse, and this may be the same. Their Ge¬ 
neral Alcibiades addressed the people in it when 
the troops entered to join his army. It was at 
Catania that the famous Stesichorus died, who was 
the first to make the chorus remain immoveable 
in the theatre, and to cause it to sing with ac¬ 
companiments. Androni also was a Catanian, 


CATANIA. 


89 


who taught first the art of pantomime, and how 
to follow with motions of the body the sound of 
a flute or any band of instruments. The original 
name of Stesichorus was Tisias ; the other he ac¬ 
quired from the alterations he made in music and 
dancing. He was also an author, and wrote in 
the Doric dialect; but all his works have been 
lost, with the exception of a few fragments. He 
was blinded, it is said, for outraging the vanity of 
Helen by his verses; and he is deemed the in¬ 
ventor of the fable of the horse and stag (after¬ 
wards used by Horace), to prevent his country¬ 
men from allying themselves with Phalaris. He 
however vindicated his want of gallantry to the 
sex by being the first who introduced the epi- 
thalamium or nuptial song. He died at Catania 
in his eighty-fifth year. I hardly deem myself 
competent as an antiquarian to judge of or decide 
on what is fine in ruins, and certainly were I to 
speak of the Catanian antiquities, without bear¬ 
ing in mind the respect due to their venerable 
and aged state, I should declare that I have been 
disappointed in their aspect; all their beauty is 
gone, and dirty stone-work only remains to gratify 
the curiosity. Near the bastion of the Infetti, 
being the place where those with pestilential dis¬ 
orders were formerly confined, there is on the 
public carriage-road a small circle of pavement, 
to which the eye of the traveller is directed, as 
the site of the ancient temple of Ceres, from 


90 


CATANIA. 


whence Verres stole the statue of the goddess, as 
related by Cicero, and the entrance to which 
temple was sacred to the matrons, and to them 
only. The Catholic church, always desirous of 
making miracles to its own advantage, asserts 
that after the middle of the eighteenth century it 
was destroyed by Leon, son of Copronymus, the 
wonder-worker, by a nod. In the garden of the 
convent of the Franciscans of Santa Maria di 
Gesu there are some ancient tombs, and in this 
church there is an early painting of a virgin and 
child on panel, by Antonio Messenese, dated 
1497. It is carefully covered with a curtain, and 

i 

is the best picture in the church;—and if exposed 
for sale in London, without any history, and de¬ 
pendant on its own merits as a work of art, might 
perhaps fetch five guineas well sold. I visited 
the cathedral founded by the Count Ruggieri in 
the year 1193, and was disappointed with its ap¬ 
pearance ; there is a picture in it of Sant’ Agata, 
by Paladino, a Florentine painter, and there is in 
the sacristia a fresco painting, representing the 
eruption of Mount Etna in the year 1669—it 
seems that the principal discharge of lava took 
place from what are called the Monte Rossi, 
being subordinate parts of the great mountain. 
The discharge of lava did not enclose the whole 
town, but only two sides. I visited the gallery 
of the Principe Biscari, and saw the following 
fine objects :—A Torso of Jove, found in the the- 


CATANIA. 


91 


atre within the town; a Hercules with modern 
legs badly put on, from the same place; a Ceres 
from Castel san Giovanni, near Palermo; a bust 
of Scipio Africanus from Rome; two magnificent 
Etruscan vases, apparently representing the toilet 
and domestic occupations of an Etruscan female, 
which are said to have cost the prince eight hun¬ 
dred pounds, and a small vase with a white 
ground and charioteer driving four horses abreast, 
with very nearly the same trappings as are used 
in Spain at the present day. There are innu¬ 
merable other objects of ancient statuary, inscrip¬ 
tions, remains, and armour, as well as many spe¬ 
cimens of natural history, but the collection did 
not strike me, after what I have seen in others in 
Europe, to contain any thing very beautiful be¬ 
yond what I have noted. One of the gates of the 
town, called Porta Ferdinando, is built of black 
marble, and Syracusan stone above; it has a me¬ 
dallion, with the busts, in basso-relievo, of King 
Ferdinand and his wife Caroline. Signor Gioeni 
has a collection of Sicilian natural history, which 
I am told is worth seeing, although I have not 
examined it myself, and he possesses all the 
valuable samples of the minerals of Etna. The 
library of the expelled Jesuits forms the main 
part of that of the university of the present day; 
but Catania seems spiritless in literature, and I 
know of no antiquarian or lover of the arts who 
has published in the present day, save the pro- 


92 


CATANIA. 


fessor Ferrara, who lias given a text book for the 
tour of Sicily. Individual writers on select spots 
have detected and corrected errors in Ferrara, 
but I confess I think his work valuable; it is 
certainly useful, and wherever the traveller in 
Sicily goes, he will find the place generally well 
described, and details given respecting it by this 
author. Perfection is not attainable, and great 
correctness in a mere guide book may be dis¬ 
pensed with sometimes, as such a work is used for 
general matters only, and not for a complete au¬ 
thority. In the Casa Communale they have a 
collection of paintings, which is but indifferent 
on the whole. It contains, however, what I judge 
to be a picture in the very best manner of No- 
velli, (called Morealeses from his birth-place), 
representing San Christoval, and this is certainly 
a magnificent performance on a large scale. 
There is a good, but damaged, copy of one of 
Raphael’s holy families, perhaps a repetition by 
him. Catania has no port or harbour, but there 
is a little unsafe bay, in which small vessels lie 
in fine weather. The river Ammiano runs through 
the town, springing from the giant mount of 
Etna. It is a classic stream, for Pindar, Ovid, 
and Strabo, make mention of it. The ancient 
Catania was built on the side of this river by the 
Siculi, a people of Italy, who having fled from 
their own country, and dispossessing the Sicani, 
the original people of Sicily, the ancient name of 



CATANIA. 


93 


which was Sicania, established themselves there. 
These were dislodged by the Greeks from Naxus, 
of which place I have made mention in the last 
chapter as having given rise to Taormina. It was 
at one period called Etna; has successively passed 
through the usual fates of ancient places—was 
impoverished by Pompeius Sixtus, son of the great 
Pompey, benefited by Augustus, devastated by 
the Barbarians, invaded by the Saracens, and 
under the Normans made a handsome figure; in 
1169 an earthquake overturned it, and left fifteen 
thousand inhabitants buried under the ruins. 
Suspected to have been hostile to Henry the 
Sixth, it was put to fire and sword, and suffered 
a same fate the second time under Frederic, his 
son. In 1348 it was devastated by the plague; 
and in 1693 another earthquake buried sixteen 
thousand of its inhabitants. It is now a hand¬ 
some town, and has in particular two large and 
very wide streets, which are certainly fine; the 
Strada Etnese, which is thirty feet in breadth, 
and one Italian mile and a half long, and the 
Strada del Corvo, of somewhat shorter length, 
and the same breadth. The town has the ap¬ 
pearance of being much larger than Messina, but 
has not more than forty-five thousand inhabitants. 
The walks in the neighbourhood are pretty, and 
it is curious to see how spots are cultivated on 
the black lava. The Indian fig grows there ex¬ 
tremely well, and requires very little earth at 




94 


CATANIA. 


% 

first planting; it then by degrees forces its roots 
into the lava, and turns it into soil. Houses are 
built on the deposits of the great eruption of 
1669, which has driven the sea near half a mile 
farther from the town than it was before. It 
caused little damage to the houses, as it partly 
encompassed, but did not touch, the city. Ca¬ 
tania is well supplied with provisions. The cli¬ 
mate is very hot in summer. It is in 37 1 ° of lati- 

r 

tude. When one enumerates the various fates of 
cities, it seems to be certain that, whether from 
a concatenation of natural changes, or from the 
universal influence of some evil spirit from whom 
spring the misfortunes as well of communities as 
individuals, as many evils attend on the register 
of time in states and towns, as in the short course 
of a family or even a single life. Who then 
would desire an eternity, if an eternity of ill and 
fluctuating fortune be the lot of existence, and 
who would desire to count long years, if they are 
to be long years of pain? Man, however, has 
nevertheless something always to desire, and in 
spite of reason, attaches an importance to tem¬ 
porary trifles, which extinguish his powers of re¬ 
flection, and dull and deaden his mental facul¬ 
ties; so that he grumblingly lives on, and when 
near his end, desires a still longer space of life, 
wretched as it may be, rather than bid adieu for 
ever to the insignificant objects which engross his 
attention. 


CATANIA. 


95 


I have hired a lettiga, at 2| pezzi of Sicily, 
about ten shillings English, per day, and in this 
propose to continue my route to Syracuse; there 
being in that part of Sicily no carriage roads. I 
will add a few notices on the mode of proceeding 
to the top of Etna, although I do not feel myself 
competent to undertake the journey, reconciling 
the accounts of those who have undertaken it as 
far as I can. The first march should be to Tre- 
castagne from Catania, thence to Nicolosi, and 
then to the summit. The Monte Rossi are near 
to Nicolosi, which is five miles distant from Tre- 
castagne, and hereabouts finishes the first region 
of Etna, called the cultivated. The woody or 
middle regions, in which are situations worthy of 
Arcadia, succeeds, and gradually terminates in 
the third, or uncultivated region, which is formed 
of black sand and ashes. After passing about 
four miles over this, the traveller arrives at what 
is called the Casa degli Inglesi, and it is advisable 
to reach the spot before sunset. After midnight 
he begins to ascend the cone of the crater, in 
order to see the sun rise; and if the day be clear, 
he has the view of the whole of Sicily, except the 
western part, the extremity of Calabria, and 
Malta. Trigonometry assigns to the visual power 
at that height, one hundred and thirty-eight miles 
in length, and eight hundred and sixty-two in 
circumference. It is advised not to drink spirits 
against the cold. The best season of the year 


9 G 


CATANIA. 


for the ascent are the months of June and July. 
The most ancient eruption of the mountain was 
in the time of the Sicani, a Spanish colony which 
had passed through Italy, the successors of the 
Cyclops, those magic creations of Homer. Of 
their chief, Polyphemus, the great poet says— 




apda S’ avi)p eviavE TceXtopiOQ, og pa te prjXa 

OLOQ TCOLpLa'iVECfKEV (VK OTVpodlV’ &CE /J.ET aXXoVg 

7 twXe~lt\ ciAX’ cnravEvQEV kiov adEjxiana rjcrj. 
teal yiip Qavjx etetvkto tte\ wptov' ovce eo)kel 
avdpt ye <riro(paya), aAAa piut vXijevtl 
v\prjXu)V opE(vt', ote (pah'Erai olov «7r’ aXXwv.’ 


The lava of Mount Etna is worked into pillars 
and ornamental furniture, such as busts, boxes, 
and stands; it serves for building houses, takes a 
good polish, and is of various colours. The sub¬ 
terraneous fires of Etna, it seems, influence the 
character of the natives of the country, as well 
as the productions of the soil; for the Catanese 
are called hot-headed fellows by their brother 
Sicilians—“ teste brucciate. ,? I have observed a 
passionate and obstinate disposition in the lower 
classes, but nothing beyond this that would make 
me judge unfavourably in general of the Ca- 
tanians. 




( 97 ) 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE LETTIGA.—May 25 , 1835. 


I mounted my lettiga, which, for the information 
of the ignorant, I will describe as a small kind of 
carriage like a vis-a-vis, supported by two long 
poles, which terminate on the shoulders of a 
couple of mules, one being before and one be¬ 
hind, and these led by a man on another mule, 
and attended by a second on foot with a staff, 
who animates the animals by calling to and oc¬ 
casionally poking them. The mule on which the 
man rides in front generally carries the luggage, 
as in the lettiga there is room for nothing; and 
as the body of the carriage hangs very high on 
the shafts or poles, an inequality of balance 
might upset it. I must observe that the carriage 
is generally not attached to the poles which sus¬ 
tain it, so that if a mule falls in ascending sloping 
ground or descending, you roll away till the 
vehicle is dashed to pieces, or stops of itself. It 
is a dangerous carriage, and yet accidents seldom 


♦ 


H 




98 


THE LETTIGA. 


happen with it. This, however, was not quite the 
case as regards myself,'for immediately on quitting 
the main road, we crossed a small steep footway 
over a gully, and whether from the animal’s inat¬ 
tention, owing to a long rest, or from the ground 
giving way, down it went into the ditch, and had 
it not been that it slipped at the commencement 
of its attempt to cross, and that the poles of the 
carriage were very long, I should have been pre¬ 
cipitated after it, and perhaps seriously hurt; as 
it was, the lettiga landed on the ground, and 
I was free from harm. I did not take the road to 
Syracuse through Lentini, but crossed the coun¬ 
try, leaving Lentini and Augusta a great deal to 
the left; this road was very bad, and no one 
who has not travelled in Sicily, and with mules, 
can imagine the value of them. On mounting 
Montserrat in Catalonia, I went on muleback, 
and there the road is bad; but the tracks which 
these animals travelled, encumbered as they were 
with the lettiga, appeared to me to entitle them 
in this journey to a praise which would appear 
overcharged to those unacquainted with the diffi¬ 
culties they had overcome, and the care and firm¬ 
ness with which they placed their feet and felt 
their way. In some of the worst road, which I 
walked through, I had more trouble to scramble 
my way on foot than they had; and in broken 
ground, where there was water, and I was obliged 


THE LETTIGA. 


99 


to pass in the lettiga, they did not exhibit the least 
embarrassment, but crossed every thing fearlessly 
and with safety. For about seven miles from 
Catania there is a carriage road, then comes a flat 
of corn land, with only a track, which is called 
the Piana de Catania; then succeeds moun¬ 
tainous land; a descent is made to the level at 
the Salita di Augusta, and at a new village called 
Prioli, which is nine miles from Syracuse, there 
begins a carriage-road, which was made within 
the last year, to the town. I am told that within 
the space of ten years all Sicily will be visited 
without trouble, as they are making high roads 
in every direction with great diligence. At about 
eight miles from Catania we crossed the Giarretta, 
which flows from Etna, and was formerly the 
yellow and rapid Simethus of Silius, and is praised 
by Athenseus for its mullets. It is now a stream 
of considerable size, and we passed it in a ferry¬ 
boat. The worst part of our road was formerly 
the most celebrated for its productions, and the 
culture and produce of the Lestrygonian fields 
exist no longer, save in the records of antiquity. 
The oreat writer of ancient times, who embel- 
lishes all he touches, has given an interest to the 
Lestrygonians beyond even their adventitious 
connection with this interesting country. They 
were, as is said by him, the first inhabitants of 
the island of Sicily; they fed on human flesh, 

h 2 


100 


THE LETTIGA. 


and they seized the companions and destroyed 
the ships of Ulysses. They possessed gigantic 
stature, and were of a migratory disposition, for 
they passed to Italy, where they built the town 
of Formiae, which is sometimes called by their 
name. Speaking of the reception the Queen of 
the Lestrygonians gave to the herald of Ulysses, 
Homer says—- 

“ // o alxp’ ayoprjg ikaXei kXvtov A vTKparpa, 
by 7 Tucnv, bg Ct) roTaiy Efitjaaro Xvypbv oXeOpov. 

avTLEva /uapxpag erapioy, wTvXiaaaTO bcp7roy’ 

\ t .r.y , ~ > \ ~ f > r\ >> 

Tu) CE CV CUt,CtVTE (pvytj E 7 TL Vl]Cig IKECTOrjV. 


The town of Augusta lies behind the point of 
Santa Croce, formerly Taurus Promontorium, on 
a small peninsula, and to this place are sent 
convicts and malefactors. We saw the odori¬ 
ferous banks of Mount Hybla a little to our left, 
as we passed and viewed the town of Meliti, 
a small place of modern construction, but famous 
for having had plantations of sugar before that 
plant was known in America. The ancient town 
of Alabon, or Alabus, was above on the moun¬ 
tains, which command the Sinus Megarensis, 
the Bay of Augusta. On the same day we 
left Catania we reached Prioli, which is nine 
miles from Syracuse, and thence had a good 
carriage-road to the town. At about four miles 
before we arrived, we began to ascend the “ Sea- 


THE LETTIGA. 


101 


letta Greca,’ as it is now called, which is only 
the brow of a hill, in the rocks of which there 
are large holes or caves, which were used succes¬ 
sively by Turks, pirates, and robbers, by the an¬ 
cients as quarries, in later times as hiding-places, 
and they are now untenanted. It was to this 
place that the ancient boundaries of Syracuse ex¬ 
tended, or more properly speaking, one of the 
four towns which composed Syracuse, and the 
road runs now between Acradina, which is east, 
and Techa and Napoli, which are west, straight 
to Ortigia, on which the town now stands. The 
others were parts of the old town, and Ortigia 
was formerly the citadel of Dionysius and the 
other Sicilian tyrants, who cut a sluice, and made 
it an island. Timoleon, when he expelled the 
tyrants from Sicily, and enabled the natives to 
form republics again, joined it to the main land, 
and Charles the Fifth of Spain fortified it with 
the remains of the Prytaneum, and gave it a 
three-fold belt of water. Syracuse has a much 
prettier appearance from the land than from the 
sea view, and put me still further in mind of 
Cadiz, as I descended the Scaletta Greca. The 
climate of the town is excellent; there are many 
instances of great longevity, and every thing is 
fine and flourishing here, save trade, which is 
much depressed. It contains twenty thousand 
inhabitants: there is a walk round the town. 


102 


THE LETTIGA. 


which is strongly fortified, and the streets, though 
deserted, are clean, and regularly drawn. It lies 
in the thirty-seventh degree of latitude. The 
port is reckoned very good. Lord Nelson used 
to say that it was the safest one he knew in 
Sicily. 




( 103 ) 


CHAPTER XYI. 


SYRACUSE.—Mav 27, 1835. 

•f 7 


I 

-Alpheum Fauna est hue Elidis amnem 

Occultas egisse vias; subter mare qui nunc 
Ore, Arethusa, tuo Siculis confunditur undis. 

The constancy of Alpheus to Arethusa still re¬ 
mains, though the nymph has lost her beauty, 
and what was once a stream lovely in itself, and 
described by Cicero as full of fish, is at present a 
small straggling pool, in which poor women 
cleanse foul linen. Alpheus bubbles as brisk as 
ever in the sea, and the elegant fable of antiquity 
still causes an interest to the traveller, in the ap¬ 
pearance of boiling water that the river assumes, 
struggling to rejoin his love in the midst of the 
briny element, which bars further approach, and 
forbids the caresses he is eager to bestow. The 
Prytaneum, or justice-hall of the Athenians, 
called by the Romans basilica, is still pointed out 
by a pillar of the Corinthian order, (contrary to 
the usual Doric,) and in later times served as a 
custom-house. Close at hand is the amphi- 




104 


SYRACUSE. 


theatre, unnamed by Cicero, and therefore pre¬ 
sumed to have been formed after his time, pro¬ 
bably during the reign of Nero, as Tacitus men- 

4 

tions about that period that the Syracusans ap¬ 
plied to Rome for permission to have more gla¬ 
diators at their public shows. Somewhat removed, 
above the amphitheatre, and embracing a splendid 
view of the town and sea, are the remains of a 
Greek theatre, cut from the solid rock; and nearly 
in the middle, on an eminence, appears the “ Lin- 
feo,” which served for the chaunting of hymns to 
Apollo before the commencement of the perform¬ 
ance. In the amphitheatre is discoverable the 
libidinaria, or passage through which were car¬ 
ried the slaughtered gladiators, victims of the 
shows. These sanguinary conflicts, so common 
at Rome, were not known in the pure times of 
the Grecian power, and it is some consolation to 
the outraged feelings of humanity to think that 
the most refined people of antiquity discoun- - 
tenanced the effusion of blood, that they were 
equally humane and enlightened, and that these 
depraved spectacles were only countenanced and 
encouraged towards the decline of the power and 
influence of the Romans, who in their more flou¬ 
rishing state always were desirous of copying the 
Greeks most closely. The Colosseum remains at 
Rome, a monument of the depravity as well as the 
magnificence of its founder, Nero. Around the 
Greek theatre at Syracuse, and between it and the 


SYRACUSE. 


105 


“ Linfeo,” are to be seen remains of tombs. In 
a deep ravine at a small distance from the spots 
of which I am treating, are the “ Lithomia,” or 
stone quarries, which served as prisons for the 
Athenian army under Nicias and Demosthenes, 
as magazines for materials to erect the splendid 
buildings of the town, and, as popular tradition 
relates, for inquisitorial halls to the tyrants of 
Syracuse. One of these is called the ear of Dio¬ 
nysius, and the vulgar have generally imagined 
that this cavern was contrived in order to facili¬ 
tate the power of the king in ascertaining the 
secrets and the sentiments of his prisoners. A 
small chamber exists above in the rock, from 
whence every sound is heard in accumulating 
power, that breaks forth below. Opinions, how¬ 
ever, of later ages have differed, and the more 
classic and enlightened say that it was here the 
thunder was produced to accompany the Eume- 
nides or Furies in their appearance on the adjoin¬ 
ing stage; for according to Xenophon, all the 
Greek theatres had their thunder-rooms; and 
perhaps had not the barbarian Turks destroyed 
the library of Alexandria, we might have found 
enough in Diodorus Siculus to have set this point 
at rest. Mr. Cockerell, I am told, has calculated 
that the Greek theatre at Syracuse would have 
held in its former state forty thousand spectators. 
In the church of Santa Lucia, the patron saint of 
the town, exists a painting by Caravaggio of her 


10 6 


SYRACUSE. 


interment, in which appear two countrymen as 
prominent figures, busily occupied in digging 
the grave. This work of art is reckoned superior 
to the painting of the same master in the church 
of St. John at Malta. Caravaggio, of a bold, 
restless, and turbulent genius, having received „ 
the honours of knighthood from the Grand Master 
of Malta for the merits of his pencil, slew a noble, 
who jested him on his green and newly acquired 
laurels; he was imprisoned, but had the good 
fortune to escape, and came to Syracuse, where 
he painted this picture; persecuted by the Mal¬ 
tese government, he withdrew to Messina, where 
he' painted a picture of the Nativity for the 
Franciscans : from Messina, always migrating, he 
went to Naples, from Naples to Rome, where he 
was arrested by mistake at the neighbouring sea¬ 
port of Civita Vecchia, from whence he intended 
to embark for Tuscany. When liberated, the vessel 
which contained his effects was near the shore 
under sail; he followed on foot, and called after 
it so violently, that the fatigue and heat caused a 
fever, which soon put a period to his existence. 
Caravaggio was low in stature, fat in person, and 
savage in aspect; he was dexterous with the 
sword, and challenged Guido and Annibal Ca- 
racci, brothers in the profession, to single combat. 

He was however lively and jocose. When at 
Malta, he found the inhabitants curious and med¬ 
dling, and resolved therefore to divert himself at 


SYRACUSE. 


107 


their expense, and caused his attendant, Lionella 
Spada, the Bolognese, a respectable artist, and 
whose works are often taken for those of Salvador 
Rosa, to stammer the Lord’s prayer at night, in 
order that their apartment might attract the 
notice of those who passed; he himself acting as 
corrector to Spada. Crowds gathered about the 
place to hear what was going on; and as the farce 
continued every evening, at last it came to the 
ears of the Grand Master, who sent for Spada, 
and inquired whether he was really ignorant of 
what every Christian was supposed to know by 
heart ? Spada, on this invitation, repeated the 
prayer in Greek, Latin, and Italian, affirming that 
it was his wish, and that of Caravaggio, only to 
divert themselves at the expense of their simple 
auditors, and that he had pretended ignorance of 
the words solely on that account. Caravaggio 
went always sumptuously dressed, and had about 
his person large chains of gold, and in his house 
every species of expensive furniture. His name 
was Michel Angelo Merigi da Caravaggio; Cara¬ 
vaggio being a small town in Romagna. 

On the sea-shore, though now partly covered, 
and encroached upon by the element, are to be 
seen marks on the rocks where the inhabitants of 
ancient Syracuse dressed their leather. The spots 
are in a circle with oblong projections, like the 
very broad handle of a frying-pan. Their general 
extent may be nearly three feet in diameter, and 


108 


SYRACUSE. 


some I have seen extend even to eight. The 
famous picture of the equestrian battle of Aga- 
thocles, the portraits of the kings of Syracuse, 
the magnificent gates of gold and ivory, and the 
Gorgon’s head, no more glitter and surprise in 
the temple of Minerva, but its Doric pillars still 
remain, and in the present day Christian choirs 
resound, and the sacrament is hallowed, where 
Pagan trophies were displayed, and sacrifices 
smoked. The duomo, or cathedral, can only now 
be known for what it once was by the learned or 
the antiquary; and a few suppliants, with many 
mendicants, are all that indicate now one of the 
most famous temples of antiquity. The mind, 
however, involuntarily flies from the present to 
the past, and this edifice may still in the eye of 
fancy be peopled with long-robed priests of an¬ 
cient times, and filled with the credulous crowd: 
still may the blood of victims smoke in imagina¬ 
tion along the pavement of the building, and still 
may the prophetic eye of the soothsayer be turned 
to heaven to supplicate favourable omens from 
entrails which are to determine the lots of war or 
peace, the fates of cities, and the destinies of 
distant nations. Close to the high road of Ca¬ 
tania are to be seen accumulated masses of rock, 
with two sepulchral cavities, one rising above the 
other. The lowest of these eternal habitations is 
the sepulchre of Archimedes. It is adorned in 
the interior with symbolic marks, and supported 


SYRACUSE. 


109 


by Doric columns. Here was the most cele¬ 
brated and populous part of Syracuse, and it is 
difficult to believe, were it not an ascertained 
fact, that the Syracusans were ignorant of the 
spot where reposed the remains of one of their 
greatest countrymen, soon after his death; nor 
was it known till Cicero came to Sicily and dis¬ 
covered it. He had the honour of pointing out 
the last home of the mathematician, who when 
living waged war against the bounds set by 
nature to human ingenuity, and asserted, that 
could he find a footing, he would displace the 
world from its orbit. The other tomb, peering 
over that of Archimedes, belonged to a hero—to 
Timoleon, who, an exiled fratricide from Greece, 
preached liberty, inflamed the Syracusans, and in 
forty days cleared Sicily of her tyrants. Great as 
was his exploit, and beneficial as the results of it 
may have been to humanity, the caviller may 
object to the man, and the philosopher or poli¬ 
tician may pause in their approbation of the 
deed, when they consider that the instrument of 
the innovation was a criminal, whose life had 
been forfeited to the outraged laws of his coun¬ 
try, and who in his own person had set an ex¬ 
ample of insubordination to precepts and com¬ 
mands held sacred by all the world. The re¬ 
mains, shattered by an earthquake, are still 
to be seen of the monument raised to Mar- 
cellus for the capture of the town, although his 


110 


SYRACUSE. 


exertions were more in obedience to the orders of 
his country than from personal inclination to the 
task, or indeed military merit; for when Syracuse 
was taken and plundered, Marcellus wept, and 
when it fell, it fell by the treason of the Spanish 
commander, who delivered it over to the Romans. 
Those who would bask in the contemplation of 
ideal beauty, must hasten to the Museum, and 
dwell upon the celebrated Venus which enchants 
every beholder. This splendid work of Grecian 
art was discovered near the catacombs, amongst 
an accumulated heap of broken columns and 
injured capitals. It is more than six feet in 
height, and formed from Parian marble. Gour- 
billon and Count Forbin prefer it to the Venus of 
Cleomenes: although in noting what I do of the 
Syracusan beauty, I must also remark what I 
have heard from persons eminent in the arts, and 
not blindly follow my own feelings. This Syra¬ 
cusan Venus is a copy. The original, however, 
which may have been contemporary with it, must 
have been highly valued and much admired, for 
there are repetitions, not merely, as in this case, 
at Syracuse, but also one to be seen in the por¬ 
tico of the house of Prince Rospiglioso at Rome, 
standing over a fountain, and another in the 
Royal Museum of Naples, but existing unfor¬ 
tunately in fragments. That it was considered 
preferable to the Venus de Medicis, may be con¬ 
cluded from the several repetitions which have 


SYRACUSE. 


I'll 


been discovered of it, while of the Venus de Me- 
cicis only the head, repeated in bronze, has been 
found at Pompeii; and indeed that part of the 
statue has been objected to as too small for the 
body. Michael Angelo restored the arms, which 
he did unsuccessfully, one of the wrists appearing 
broken. Of the Venus of Cleomenes we know 
nothing; of the Venus Campidoglia there are 
numberless copies. Near at hand, in the Museum 
of Syracuse, is an Esculapius of small dimen¬ 
sions, but in my opinion of exquisite workman¬ 
ship, although some are cold in its praise. The 
contour of the limbs may be traced through the 
drapery of stone, and to my mind at least, with 
wonderful accuracy and effect. These two sta¬ 
tues form the lions of the collection. Under the 
modern church of San Giovanni are to be seen the 
catacombs, of such extent as never yet to have 
been entirely explored. Greek legends, bones, 
medals, and earthen vessels, are perpetually ap¬ 
pearing again; and were the government to ven¬ 
ture some expense in clearing these cemeteries, 
and disinterring the remains of this most interesting- 
town, no doubt can exist but that immense trea¬ 
sures would be found for the gratification of the 
curious. It was once one of the most vast, rich, 
and luxurious cities in the world; indeed, in the 
time of Cicero, that great man places it on a level 
with Rome, and above all the other capitals of 
Greece and Italy. The present possessors, how- 


] 12 


SYRACUSE. 


ever, of these remains of classic ground, are supine 
and cold to research; but it is to be hoped that 
the same spirit of inquiry will be directed to Sy¬ 
racuse, which has beamed over and disinterred 
Herculaneum and Pompeii, and that curiosity 
will be kindled to examine with like attention 
the shores of the Ionian Sea and the banks of 
the Anapus. Adventurers from foreign countries 
are unfortunately not protected by the Neapolitan 
court: I shall have occasion to mention hereafter 
that a classic investigation and excavation of the 
ruins of Selinuntum was begun upon by a party of 
English, but the government, contrary even to 
their own opinion of justice, seized what had 
been found, and transferred it to the Museum of 
Palermo, allowing themselves to be condemned 
at their own tribunal, and paying damages for the 
injustice and illegality of the act. Two Doric 
pillars mark the site of the temple of Olympian 
Jupiter, which stood near to the river Anapus, 
on the other side of the harbour of Syracuse; it 
was the mantle of this divinity which was plun¬ 
dered by Dionysius, with the remark that a gold 
covering was heavy in summer, and cold in winter, 
for which reason he should replace it with a 
woollen one. The Thunderer has been repre¬ 
sented with different attributes in different places; 
at Olympia he had a crown of olive branches, his 
mantle was variegated with flowers, particularly 
the lily, and the eagle perched upon his sceptre. 


113 


SYRACUSE. 

At Crete he appeared without ears, to imply that 
the sovereign master of the world was impartial 
to all ; at Lacedaemon he had four heads, that he 
might seem to hear petitions with greater readi¬ 
ness. Ludicrous as these attributes may appear 
to those who hide the Creator of all in the sanc¬ 
tuary of impenetrable obscurity, and endow him 
with almighty and omniscient power, it is never¬ 
theless interesting to those who study human 
nature to observe, that man forms always a ruler 
for himself in every nation and every age—whe¬ 
ther it be that there is an instinctive feeling in 
the human mind of the weakness of human power, 
and it thus creates an artificial resource for itself 
in prayers to a divinity, when all its proper means 
fail it, or whether in reality a “ divinity stirs within 
us,” and teaches the emanations of his nature to 
re-aspire to their proper source. There is there¬ 
fore this existing proof against the theory of the 
Atheist, that the conviction of a Godhead is inhe¬ 
rent in all mankind; a notion which identifies 
itself with his existence, and is adopted before 
any proof of its certainty is asked. 

On following the ascent of the Anapus, the 
traveller meets a small, but deep, branch stream 
to the left, called the Ciane, which, after a course 
of four miles, terminates in a circular fountain or 
spring of one hundred and fifty yards in circum¬ 
ference ; and here it was that the wanton wan¬ 
derer Hercules offered a bull in sacrifice to Pro- 


i 


114 


SYRACUSE. 


serpine when he arrived at Syracuse, ordering 
the inhabitants of the town at the same time to 
repeat the ceremony once in each succeeding 
year; here it was that Ceres, disconsolate for the 
loss of her daughter after her ravishment by 
Pluto, found the floating girdle of Proserpine. 
The calmness and seclusion which reigned around 
brought upon my mind at once the reminiscences 
of old times and ancient legends, and I for some 
moments remained absorbed in the contem¬ 
plation of the revolving centuries which had 
passed over this pellucid stream, without sullying 
its waters, or displacing the plants of papyrus 
which embrace it like a girdle, and forbid the 
view to wander beyond its silver face. The 
papyrus, which here grows in abundance, has 
not been cultivated in other parts of the island, 
for its uses have been supplied by other plants 
amongst the moderns; the Greeks and Romans 
used it for making paper on which to write, for 
cloth, for ropes, and for sails. The uses to which 
this plant has been put by mankind, have given 
it an interest and a dignity in the annals of the 
world, more particularly also as all our know¬ 
ledge, and all that interests and ennobles our 
nature, has been transmitted on its folds. The 
Egyptians, that great and remarkable nation, 
before whose monuments of greatness and power 
all others are insignificant, preserved their annals, 
their secrets, and the history of their sciences, on 


SYRACUSE. 


115 


it, and transmitted them from one generation to 
another by means of this vegetable; and its cul¬ 
ture formerly attracted the interest and atten- 
tion of the Greeks and Romans,— those master 
minds from whom we have inherited the stores of 
philosophy, oratory, and poetry—all that tends 
to place us as uncivilized nation above the savage 
state. The art of making paper from the papyrus, 
fortunately now no longer necessary, is lost; the 
process described by Pliny is unintelligible, or if 
intelligible, altogether unsuccessful: the mode at 
present made use of by the curious produces a 
material fit for the pen, but is attended with 
much trouble, and if adopted on a large scale 
would be highly expensive. For modern paper¬ 
making we are indebted to the Spaniards, but I 
should not think any modern paper so durable as 
that made by the ancients from the papyrus. 
The papyrus plant will grow to the height of 
thirty feet, and has a head or top like a broom. 
It has no leaves. The interior of the stalk, which 
is composed of hard stringy fibres, with some 
vegetable pulp, like a reed, is cut into slices, and 
these adapted together transversely: they attach 
themselves with the natural glue they possess, 
and thus is the modern papyrus paper made. 

The river Anaous is seven-and-twenty miles in 
length; the Ciane, from its junction, and thence 
to the sea, in all six. There are rice-grounds in 
the neighbourhood; and malaria, which produces 


IIG 


SYRACUSE. 


fever, is said to prevail there in the summer. The 
Italians observe “ a gun-shot may miss, but mal¬ 
aria never. ” I have omitted to mention that the 
papyrus on the Ciane springs when sown in a 
few months, and is of quick growth. I visited 
the subterranean roads of Epipoli, and am told 
they are of immense extent; four horses can pass 
abreast in their covered ways: they proceed 
towards Syracuse, and as aqueducts cross them, 
were perhaps used as a means of escape from the 
enemy in cases of difficulty or distress. The 
Gastello Labdalo is now only to be traced in 
ruins, but they convey some idea of its ancient 
grandeur, and are joined to the hidden passes of 
Epipoli, and unite with the famous wall of Diony¬ 
sius, which, though three miles in length, was 
constructed in twenty days, giving employment 
to sixty thousand workmen and twelve thousand 
oxen. It is said that amongst these ruins were 
concealed the military chests of the Athenian 
army; perhaps in some succeeding age to form the 
fortune and booty of an adventurous excavator. 

From what I have seen of Syracuse, I must 
say that I should like it as a residence, were 
I disposed permanently to fix myself out of 
my own country. It contains a theatre, is very 
clean, the prices of provisions and living are 
cheap, and every luxury is to be had. I know of 
no town in Sicily which contains more interesting 
remains of antiquity, and though it may be called 


SYRACUSE. 


117 


dull, there are very many small towns frequented 
by people of limited incomes, and parents de¬ 
sirous of giving a good education to their children 
at a cheap rate, on the continent, which do not 
by any means possess advantages equal to those 
that Syracuse presents. It is close to Malta, from 
which the journey to England may now be made 
every month in fifteen days. Jt enjoys the finest 
climate imaginable: Cicero observes, that during 
his residence there of a year, the sun was never 
hid for a single day. The heat in summer is 
not extreme, a refreshing breeze always proceed¬ 
ing from the sea. The sirocco was oppressive at 
Catania; at Syracuse I did not perceive it. In 
fine, were I ever obliged to choose a residence, 
and were uninfluenced by relations and con¬ 
nexions, Syracuse would be my choice. I pre¬ 
fer, I confess, on the whole, the towns of Spain 
to those of Italy, though in point of climate and 
the choice of provisions no single one is prefer¬ 
able to this. I may observe that it contains 
Greek and Latin professors, and is furnished with 
drawing and music-masters. The red Syracusan 
table wine is the best I have tasted in Sicily; it 
is not so fiery as Marsala; the growth of Mus¬ 
catel, or white sweet wine, is however what the 
people of the country pride themselves upon, 
and I think with reason. Marcellus, who wept 
when Syracuse was sacked by his soldiers, bears 


118 


SYRACUSE. 


testimony by his grief to the attractions the town 
anciently possessed: the shade of that beauty 
still remains. The women of Syracuse are very 
fine; they join the Sicilian vivacity, and eyes 
of fire, to the elegance of the Grecian face and 
form, differing in this last from the other islanders. 






( H9 ) 


CHAPTER XVII. 


ON THE ROAD.—June 1, 1835. 


The road to Palazzuolo being impassable, owing 
to previous rains, we were obliged to retrace our 
steps, and fall into the road at Lentini for Calta- 
girone. We had Etna and the sea in view for 
part of the way, and the country in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Lentini is very picturesque, particu¬ 
larly on the approach to the town; you have 
rocks in the foreground, and the Lake of Beviere 
with mountains in the distance, the sides of the 
view being filled with trees and broken ground. 
The great misery, however, of travelling in Sicily, 
arises from the state of the roads, when once the 
few main ones are diverged from. Any one in a 
lettiga, or on horseback, has his attention invo¬ 
luntarily withdrawn from the enchanting and 
interesting scenery to dreadful stony precipices, 
and the angles of rock and gullies which he has 
to pass. Although the mules very seldom fall, 
yet had they done so in many of the places we 
encountered going to Lentini, we should have 




120 


ON TIIE ROAD. 


been infallibly dashed to pieces. The Lake of 
Beviere is formed by an accumulation of streams, 
and is the largest in the island. It is rich in 
eels, mullets, and other fish, but spreads its pes¬ 
tiferous exhalations over a circuit of many miles, 
and renders the country round very unhealthy. 
The road from Lentini to Palagonia is for the first 
six miles full of olive trees, and the fields are 
fertile with corn ; afterwards there is mountain 
land, but it is covered with crops, and when the 
traveller is within two miles of Palagonia, the 
country is a paradise. I saw on approaching the 
town, hedges of the Indian fig, which varied 
from ten to forty feet in height. Palagonia itself 
would be called by us a dirty village, but it con¬ 
tains five thousand inhabitants. It is a feudal 
possession of the prince of the same name, who 
resides at Palermo. We had no very bad passes 
from Lentini, but many gullies, and I should 
imagine in the winter, when swoln with rain, 
they must be almost impracticable; indeed, in 
the Sicilian plains it often happens for both men 
and animals to be lost in the quicksand. The 
mountain of Etna always remains in sight till 
close to Palagonia. The road from that place to 
Caltagirone is a distance of seventeen miles, of 
which the scenery is somewhat interesting; at 
about two miles from the town it begins to ascend, 
and is in some places very precipitous. It ap¬ 
pears I am destined to be unfortunate with the 


ON THE HOAD. 


121 


lettiga, for near the journey’s end down came the 
front mule, having slid from the side path, and 
had it not been for the united efforts of three 
persons, who saw the animal blunder, I should 
have been rolled with the miserable box into the 
road. Travelling in Sicily, either on muleback 
or on foot, is very well for one who can endure 
the fatigue, for the passenger sees a beautiful and 
picturesque country; but when, as in my case, 
he is confined a close prisoner, and is anxious, to 
say the least of it, at every bad piece of ground, 
the trouble he has to undergo is scarcely repaid 
by what he sees, and it is almost better to pass 
from place to place by the steam-boat, although 
with a sacrifice of time, for the period allowed 
by the regulations of the company does not per¬ 
mit the passenger to see every thing in one voy¬ 
age ; he will however by this means avoid the 
danger of falls, the annoyance of bad inns, rural 
repasts under trees, the expense of taking guides 
and laying in provisions (for once out of a town, 
nothing is to be found or procured), and the 
wretched beds and accommodation at the halting- 
places. In making these remarks, I do not in 
the least mean to reflect on the Sicilians, whom 
I have found invariably kind and civil, and the 
very reverse of the Spaniards. They will give 
you what they have, and get for you what they 
can, and will spare no pains to make you satis¬ 
fied. I think also that the English are popular 


112 


ON THE ROAD. 


with them, for 1 have always heard that they 
regret to this day the departure of the English 
army from their island. An inhabitant of Syra¬ 
cuse told me that all that town required to render 
it pleasant and lively as a residence, was four 
English families. I confess I do not think my 
countrymen understand the art of living and of 
rendering society agreeable so well as the French 
or continental nations; and perhaps when he 
made the remark, my acquaintance may have 
been willing to pay me a compliment, seeing I 
was English; but I repeat what he said, to show 
that the feeling at least of the people is favourable 
to us, the 

“ Penitiis toto divisos orbe Britannos,” 

as we were reckoned of the ancient inhabitants of 
the island. 

The town of Caltagirone may reckon in popu¬ 
lation twenty thousand souls. It is remarkable 
for nothing save a manufactory of clay figures, 
representing the different costumes of Sicily, 
which possess some merit, and are sent for sale 
to various parts of the island. The road from 
Caltagirone does honour to the fame of the in¬ 
land communications of Sicily. It is bad and 
precipitous, and the descent from a small half¬ 
way village, called Santa Maria di Nisceme, is 
positively frightful. Terra Nuova is close to the 
;sea, and had once some trade; but so many 


ON THE ROAD. 


123 


vessels have been lost near it, that owners of 
ships prefer taking in cargoes at Girgenti. It 
may have perhaps eight thousand inhabitants, 
being populous for its size. All I saw of note in 
the place was a manufactory of plaster figures, 
which were cast in moulds of clay. These are 
sent to different parts of Europe, and are what 
we see exhibited in London : the material of 
which they are made is found in the neighbour¬ 
ing mountains. The artists who found them are 
all from Lucca in Tuscany, and I was surprised 
by their numerous colony. I was asked nine- 
pence only for a very splendid Napoleon. When 
I saw the effigy of the great man now serving for 
a chimney ornament, and so vilely handled, I 
thought of Juvenal and my school-boy studies, 
reduced as the mighty Emperor of the French 
now is to what poor Hannibal was then. At 
Terra Nuova we had a disagreeable sirocco wind, 
which accompanied us on our road. Near this 
place existed the ancient town of Gela, which 
was built, as Thucydides says, half a century 
after Syracuse. It is called “ immanis” by Virgil, 
and consequently in his time must have been of 
considerable extent and importance. From Terfa 
Nuova to Licata the distance is nineteen miles, 
principally of level land, and partly of sea-shore. 
The river Salso, anciently the “ Himera,” runs 
close to the town, and is crossed by a ferry. A 
neighbouring promontory, which juts into the 


124 


ON THE ROAD. 


sea to the west of Licata, is the spot on which 
formerly existed the castle of the tyrant Phalaris, 
famous for his brazen bull of torture. This fort 
is called “Dsedalum” by Antonius in his Itine¬ 
rary. The river Salso nearly divides Sicily into 
equal portions, east and west, rising in the moun¬ 
tains of Mandonia; on the opposite side of the 
island, and running due south to the sea at Li- 
cata. On the road from Licata to Girgenti there 
is nothing of an interesting character to remark 
upon. The first seven miles are through a very 
rich and fertile plain, and the traveller then has 
to pass over some mountainous land ; he after¬ 
wards gains level ground, and a very steep and 
dangerous ascent brings him to the filthy town 
of Girgenti, the position of which is on the side 
of a hill. This modern city is badly paved, its 
houses are ill built, and its streets narrow, and it 
bears an air of antiquity in itself, quite accordant 
with the impression given by the ruins in its 
neighbourhood to those who approach it. 




( 125 ) 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


GIRGENTI.—June 4 , 1835 . 


Girgenti contains seventeen thousand inhabi¬ 
tants. The remains of the temples and other 
antiquities of Agrigentum may be easily seen in 
a couple of days. The inns of the town are bad, 
and there is nothing to induce the traveller to re¬ 
main long in such a place, after his curiosity has 
been gratified with the sights of the neighbour¬ 
hood. Perhaps the finest view of the temples of 
Concordia and Juno Lacinia, the former of which 
is best preserved, is from the road as you ap¬ 
proach the town, and I have observed that in 
most ancient buildings “ ’Tis distance lends en¬ 
chantment to the view.” You have in this place 
a beautiful plain before you like a green map; 
these two fine remnants of the antique, with 
almost all their pillars standing, rise from the 
plain, the African sea is to the left, and to the 
right there are high mountains which bound the 
horizon, and on the side of which stands the 
modern town. Here are scenes for a painter, and 




12G 


GIRGENTI. 


here the senses may revel in the beauties of 
nature, and it is on such spots the mind is so¬ 
bered, and its sensibility moved, on reflecting 
that the ruins now seen are only the shadows of 
what once existed, the last ray of glory of an 
immense capital, which formerly held eight hun¬ 
dred thousand of animated beings, all important 
in their own estimation, all occupied in providing 
for the morrow, all busy and bustling in their 
day, some vain of their country, some of them¬ 
selves, and none allowing the chilling thought to 
depress their spirits, that after a few centuries 
their gods and their buildings, all that had ex¬ 
hausted their purses and their imaginations to 
render durable and venerable and beautiful, and 
all their public and private fame, should disappear 
so absolutely as only to leave a few memorials to 
mark the emptiness of all human expectations; 
and that these few are protected, not by the de¬ 
scendants, the kindred in race or blood, of those 
who erected them, but guarded as it were in 
compassion by a nation speaking another tongue, 
with other manners, another religion,—and are 
respected only by a few travellers, not for the 
purposes of their erection, nor out of regard for 
their founders, but from the simple impulse of 
the human mind to endeavour to speculate on 
habits and events long past, being equally ex¬ 
posed to vicissitudes as themselves, and whose 
records will no less perish in the common course 


G'IRGENTI. 


127 


of sublunary changes. The muleteer now drives 
over the former residences of fashion—the resorts 
of fastidious and delicate beauty; the goat and 
the heifer repose on the site of pavements trod 
by the witty and the great, and the horse and ass 
may graze on the tribunals from whence pro¬ 
ceeded discourses eloquent, persuasive, and in¬ 
structive—all is now gone, and the ruined temples 
alone survive to show that this was Agrigentum. 
The ideas of a half-savage and infant state have 
generally influenced those of their more enlight¬ 
ened descendants throughout all countries, and 
popular prejudices survive even after reason, aided 
by education, has made considerable progress in 
the overthrow of superstition : we have therefore 
all ancient temples on rising ground, where the 
nature of the land permitted, from the pious no¬ 
tion that the gods inhabited the sky, and that, 
placed there, the suppliants would approach 
nearer to those whose clemency they were to 
propitiate, or whose bounty they were to entreat. 
The cathedral of Girgenti stands on the site of 
the temple of Poliean Jupiter, and its architecture 
is sufficiently ugly, being a species of bad Gothic; 
the interior of the building itself possesses no 
great beauty. The “ Polieia” was a festival held 
at Thebes in honour of the god Apollo, who was 
represented with grey hair; hence the word “ Po- 
lieia,” from the Greek ? roXiog, which signifies grey. 
The victim of the feast was generally a bull, and 


128 


GIRGENTI. 


when no bull could be found, an ox was sacri¬ 
ficed, and from hence the sacrifice of oxen was 
held to be lawful. The canons, always studious 
of their comforts, have hung the service chairs of 
the church so as to move upwards when it is 
needful during the prayers for the holy men to 
appear to stand, and they thus satisfy the respect 
due to the faith, and secure at the same time the 
comfort of the body by keeping their seats. There 
are four objects in the cathedral of Girgenti worth 
seeing: a virgin and child by Guido, which, 
from the poverty of good paintings in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, has been much praised, and of which 
Signor Politi has taken several copies—but which, 
though a genuine picture, I cannot say that I much 
admire; a sarcophagus, which now serves for a 
baptismal font, and is of the Greek times, en¬ 
graved with the story of Phsedra and Hippolytus. 
Were the roads in Greece then what they are in 
Sicily now, such an accident as that by which 
Hippolytus is fabled to have met his death—the 
frightening of his horses by a sea monster—must 
have been quite sufficient to ensure Venus her 
revenge. This monument I think fine in the 
grouping, and it is well illustrated by Signor Po¬ 
liti of Girgenti, whose work on the subject is 
worth reading: I will extract from his essay what 
I think most interesting. He says, “ How and 
when this precious remnant of the Agrigentine 
splendour was brought to light, is altogether un- 


GIRGENTI. 


129 


known, and the researches of others as well as 
myself on the subject have been equally vain. 
It is to be presumed that it was concealed at the 
time of Fazellus, for that diligent writer makes 
no mention of it. Equally impossible would it 
be to guess the Agrigentine for whose sepulchre 
it served, or the artist who formed it; but it may 
be conjectured to have been made about four 
hundred years before the Christian era, contem¬ 
porary with the death of Euripides, author of the 
celebrated tragedy of Hippolytus, whose fame, at 
that time green, stimulated the artist to follow 
the poet with the chisel in his hand, as I shall 
endeavour to prove in the explanations I shall 
give of the different tablets. Euripides began his 
play with the return of Hippolytus from the chase. 
The sculptor has done the same, thereby showing 
the preference Hippolytus gives to the worship of 
Diana over that of Venus, and the cause of the 
tragedy. In the second tablet, where we find 
the pensive Phaedra with her maids, the expres¬ 
sions of Euripides are strictly represented on the 
stone, as well as in the third, where we have 
Hippolytus replying to the wicked nurse, who 
solicits his love for Phaedra, that he will leave 
the palace rather than consent to dishonour his 
father, and not return till accompanied by The¬ 
seus, then absent. In the marble we have the 
action of repulse to the nurse, and see objects 
prepared for a journey. The sculptor here has 


K 


130 


GIRGENTI. 


united two acts, that of the rejection of Phaedra s 
proposition, and the determination of Hippolytus 
to depart. In the last tablet comes the catas¬ 
trophe—a chariot overturned, Hippolytus below 
it, and the monster above: two of the attendants 
are in the act of falling on their master.” The 
second sarcophagus, which I reckon among the 
varieties of this place, is of white marble, and 
ornamented with a border; the cover is entire, 
but it has no carving, and is in other respects 
quite plain. The third is also of white marble, 
(for there are three), and stands on the back of an 
elephant, also of the same material. The friars of 
the cathedral were barbarous enough to inclose it 
in the large baptismal font or sarcophagus already 
mentioned, as they imagined it held the water 
better than the other, which leaked, and it was 
for a considerable time concealed from the eyes 
of the curious. It now occupies a place on the 
ground in one corner of the cathedral, and may 
be seen by any passenger. The history of these 
two last funereal monuments is not known, and 
conjecture, indeed, is all that we can exercise 
concerning that of the first. I visited the palace 
of the bishop, who is well lodged, and has a few 
pictures; the best are the sketch of a portrait by 
Titian, and a repetition on a small scale, said to 
be original, of the famous Transfiguration of Ra¬ 
phael; but as far as I can judge from what I have 
seen of the master, I should say that this little 



GIKGENTI. 


131 


painting had never encumbered his easel. It ap¬ 
pears to me like one of the many copies of Italian 
pictures made by Mignard and the foreign artists. 
The worthy owner says, as is almost always 
affirmed, an English lord offered him some im¬ 
mense sum to possess it. The remainder of the 
gallery are all works of cabinet size, and are not 
in any respect better than the daubs which are 
daily exhibited in the windows of every dirty 
picture-dealer in London or Paris; in fact, they 
are altogether unworthy of the place they occupy. 
The monuments most worth seeing at Girgenti 
are the temples of Concordia and Juno Lacinia, 
the remains of the temples of Hercules and of 
Olympian Jupiter, and the tomb of Theron. The 
temple of Ceres and Proserpine, on which now 
stands the church of San Biagio,—that of Escu- 
lapius, of which two Doric-Ionic columns only 
remain, joined to a modern building,—that of 
Vulcan, of which the inquirer sees two mouldering 
pillars,—the temple of Poliean Jupiter, of which 
next to nothing remains,—may be interesting to an 
architect, but are very unsatisfactory to the general 
traveller. About what is called the chapel of Fa- 
laris, antiquarians seem to be at a loss in deciding 
on its architecture. Signor Politi, who is an au¬ 
thority, inclines to the opinion that it was Doric- 
Ionic, the same as the tomb of Theron. The 
sites of the temples of Atabiris Jupiter, so called 
from a mountain in Rhodes, and of Minerva, are 

k 2 


132 


GIRGENTI. 


pointed out on the Atenian rock, the highest point 
of the modern, as it was of the ancient, town ; but 
not a vestige remains of their existence. I shall 
endeavour to describe what I think most interest¬ 
ing. To begin with the temple of Concordia— 
its dimensions are not very great; the length is 
one hundred and fifty feet (Italian palmi), the 
breadth sixty-four; somewhat less than the same 
measurement in English feet. The columns, on 
close inspection, appear disproportionately large 
for the size of the building, though that im¬ 
pression does not strike the sight from a dis¬ 
tance ; indeed the reverse is the case, and the 
pillars give an air of lightness to the whole. 
Here then we have a specimen of the severe and 
correct style of architecture of the ancients, a 
model from which the moderns might borrow, 
and which they might study with the greatest 
advantage, and forsaking their crazy Gothic and 
tawdry composite for the severe simplicity of the 
Doric, gain in the beauty of their fabrics, and 
make their reputation lasting, and their works 
admired by all who judge soundly in matters of 
architecture. A few of the pillars of this temple 
have been cased with Roman cement, or at least 
a composition which looks like it, in order pro¬ 
bably to convey an idea to the traveller of the 
original sharpness of their mouldings; and, with 
very bad taste, an inscription of the date of 1782 
has been put over the architrave to mark the 


GIRGENTI. 


133 


period oi the restoration. The whole edifice might 
be repaired and made perfect without any great 
expense; but who would not rather see it remain 
venerable, and resisting the encroachments of 
time in its unsophisticated state ? The door of 
the interior of the temple is to the east, with two 
lateral stairs cut in the thickness of the wall, one 
of which remains perfect. The wall which en¬ 
closed the interior on the western side has been 
dilapidated by the Christians, when they erected 
the church of San Gregorio delle Rape, and the 
walls of the interior have been cut into arches by 
the moderns; for the arch never entered into 
Greek architecture. This interior ark of the 
temple had a ceiling, and there was an additional 
one to the temple itself, with windows which 
transmitted the light to the intermediate space, 
where passengers walked, and to which places 
the staircases led. The ark of the temple had no 
borrowed light; what came was from the door, 
and the priests performed all their sacrifices by 
artificial light. This temple was called the tem¬ 
ple of Concordia from an inscription supposed to 
belong to it being found in the vicinity, which 
was placed and is now to be seen in the town- 
house of Girgenti. From this it would appear 
that the edifice in question was built by the Lily- 
biteans, inhabitants of an ancient town in Sicily, 
near where Marsala now stands, though at the 
same time there is the positive evidence of greater 


134 


G1RGENTI. 


antiquity from the style of the architecture; and 
perhaps the inscription may allude to repairs 
done in the buildings under the Proconsuls, 11a- 
terius Candidus and Cornelius Marcellus, whose 
names appear on it. The real date of the erection 
of the temple therefore remains uncertain, and 
will always probably continue so. It has been a 
matter of controversy whether Gellius, the Agri- 
gentine, famous for his hospitality, perished with 
his family and his treasures in the temple of Juno 
Lacinia, or whether he destroyed himself by fire 
in that of Jupiter Atabiris, when the Carthagi¬ 
nians took possession of the town; for there are 
marks of fire in both places. In front of the 
temple of Juno Lacinia may be distinguished a 
terrace, which served for sacrifices, as is supposed, 
or for a lounging place for the people previous to 
the religious ceremonies. In the peristyle of the 
temple are thirty-four columns, six at each end, 
and eleven at the sides, of the Doric Greek order. 
In this temple some say existed the picture of 
Juno by Zeuxis, in order to paint which he strip¬ 
ped naked one hundred of the finest damsels of 
the town, in honour of the divinity and exaltation 
of her beauty, as Pliny assures us. The painter, 
it seems, delighted, as most painters do, in con¬ 
templating the female form freed, from the re¬ 
straints of dress, for Batacchi, an Italian poet, 
says, speaking of this very picture and its au¬ 
thor— 


GIRGENTI. 


135 


u O quel che cento donne fe spogliare 
Per depinger la deache nacque in mare.” 

“ He who a hundred naked nymphs must view, 

To paint the goddess nursling of the sea.” 

Perhaps with like advantages may he have 
painted the Helen of Crotona and his Venus Cal- 
lipiga at Syracuse. Ariosto, that capricious and 
delightful romancer, whose verses flow like honey 
from the hive, makes mention of Zeuxis, and says 
he stole from all the sex to make one Juno. 
Great, indeed, was the merit considered of a fine 
form amongst the Greeks. To return to the 
temple: it is one hundred and fifty palmi in 
length, and seventy in width: the circumference 
of the pillars is great, their diameter being more 
than four feet English, equal to about five palmi, 
Italian measure. Behind the temple of Juno 
there is a range of rocks, which, according to 
Diodorus Siculus, was one hundred and twenty 
feet high, extended ten miles, and surrounded the 
city to the south side. In it are to be seen cavi¬ 
ties at the present day, which served the Agri- 
gentines as tombs. The interior of Agrigentum 
was however divided into five cities with walls, 
after the manner of Syracuse. These were called 
Agragas, Rupes Antenea, Neapolis, Agrigentum, 
and Camicus. The Rupes Antenea has had also 
the appellation of “ Colle Minervale.” Two rivers 
traversed this immense town, one the Agragas, 


136 


GIRGENTI. 


now called the Drago, and the other the Ipsa, 
now the Naro. The memory of Theron was cele¬ 
brated with divine honours, after a reign over the 
Agrigentines of sixteen years, and his tomb has 
survived the worship which raised to the sphere 
of the immortals the favourite of his people. It 
is twenty palmi in length, and seventeen wide. 
In later times it seems to have served some rustic 
for a dwelling, and I could perceive an orifice in 
the side wall, which probably was pierced to 
allow the transmission of smoke. It has a Doric 
frieze to Ionic columns. This tomb is placed to 
the north, contrary to the usual custom of placing 
tombs, which was always to the south, and criti¬ 
cism, uncertain at all times, and still more peri¬ 
lously uncertain and conjectural in antiquities, 
has not scrupled to affirm that this was a tomb 
raised to a horse, and not to a hero. It is quite 
certain that the Agrigentines raised tombs to 
quadrupeds, to dogs, and even birds; but there is 
always an appeal from the acuteness of hyper¬ 
criticism to the common testimony of posterity, 
and it would be uncharitable to do away with 
the pleasing illusion, even were it one attendant 
on the few remaining well-preserved sepulchres 
of ancient royalty. A single olive bends to the 
wind over the remains of the shrine dedicated to 
Hercules, and a single pillar marks the habitation 
for a brazen statue, of which Cicero says, “ Non 
facile dixerim quidquid vidisse pulchrius”—al- 


GIRGENTI. 


137 


though tradition reports that it was somewhat 
injured in the mouth by the many kisses of sup¬ 
pliants in their fervour of prayer. Verres endea¬ 
voured to steal this statue of the god, but the 
people rose to defend their favourite, as a lioness 
to protect her young. In this same temple of 
Hercules at Girgenti existed the famous painting 
of Zeuxis, on which he set so high a value himself 
as not to consent to sell it, preferring to give it 
rather than appear extravagant in asking what he 
really thought it worth, or to experience the mor¬ 
tification of accepting a price which he might 
imagine inadequate to its value. The subject was 
an infant Hercules strangling two serpents. Pliny, 
in making mention of it, remarks, 44 Magnificus 
est Jupiter ejus in throno, astantibus diis, et Her¬ 
cules infans dracones strangulans, Alcmena matre 
coram pavente, et Amphitryone.” On walking 
amidst the ruins of Olympian Jupiter, the pas¬ 
senger is struck by the appearance of an enor¬ 
mous stone giant, lying prostrate on his back with 
the hands crossed behind the head. This mon¬ 
ster was united by the care of Signor Polit.i, for 
the different fragments of stone which formed his 
body were dispersed over the island; but his dili¬ 
gence has not been requited with the gratitude 
of the age, and it may be presumed that the idle 
and the vagabond will ultimately again disjoin 
the formidable body. This is one of the many 
“ caryatides” which sustained the architraves of 


138 


GIRGENTI. 


the building, but in what particular part of it 
they stood is disputed by the learned. The en¬ 
trance to the temple, or rather the marks by 
which a judgment may be formed where the en¬ 
trance was, (for not a pillar is standing of this 
once enormous edifice,) have been obliterated by 
a government commissioner, in his endeavours to 
dig for remains, and the ruin of time and barba¬ 
rian hostility has been completed by friendly 
ignorance. This pile of building was however 
supposed to be the largest of any of ancient Agri- 
gentum ; the masses of stone are enormous, and 
the saying of Plato and Empedocles square well 
with the evidence before our eyes —“ iEdificant 
tanquam nunquam essent morituri; edunt et 
bibunt tanquam eras essent morituri ”—“ They 
build as if they were to be eternal, they eat and 
drink as if they were to die to-morrow.” Signor 
Politi of Girgenti has written a treatise on this 
temple, which is interesting and ingenious. He 
supposes a carving of stone, showing the de¬ 
struction of the giants by Jupiter, to have been 
over the entrance, and he gives a neat conjectural 
detail of its execution. Models are to be had in 
the town of all the ancient antiquities; some as 
they now exist, and others with the parts want¬ 
ing supplied. They are done in stone, and form 
elegant and instructive objects of ornamental fur¬ 
niture. The size of the recumbent giant or carya- 
tide is thirty feet in length. The dimensions of 


GI11GENTI. 


139 


the temple I have stated in my remarks on the 
remains of those of Selinuntum. Amongst the 
modern buildings, the church of San Calogero, 
which is near the Porta di Ponte, is the only one 
worth seeing, and of the rest of the ancient struc¬ 
tures nothing remains save what may aid the con¬ 
jectures of some visionary antiquary. It was in 
Agrigentum that Perillus formed the brazen bull 
of torture for Phalaris, the tyrant of the town, and 
which, by the revolt and condemnation of an out¬ 
raged people, served for the torture not only of 
the inventor, but also of the wretch who used it. 
Empedocles was perhaps the most famous amongst 
the inhabitants and natives of Agrigentum. He 
was a Pythagorean, partly perhaps by vanity 
and partly by conviction, according to the com¬ 
mon disposition of philosophers, and asserted 
without hesitation that he had formerly been 
a girl, a boy, a shrub, a bird, a fish, and was 
now a man. His poetic compositions were re¬ 
cited with those of Hesiod and Homer at the 
Olympic games, and he was strenuous for the 
liberties of his city, and patriotic enough to refuse 
the dazzling offer of kingly power. The vanity 
of his philosophy, some say, caused him to die 
by a voluntary precipitation into Etna, in order 
to be counted a divinity, and a shoe has been 
produced in proof of the story from the flaming 
mouth of its crater, said to belong to him : others 
assert that he lived to a great age, and then 


140 


GIRGENTI. 


perished accidentally in the sea. The fate of 
great men is almost always attended with a story; 
posterity is desirous that a consistency of the 
wonderful should await them in their last mo¬ 
ments,, and antiquity withdrew her heroes to the 
skies amidst thunder and the war of nature. The 
people of Girgenti are, I am told, notorious for 
bad faith—they are not so refined, nor are they 
so mild in manner, as their Syracusan brethren. 
Strife and quarrels are frequent amongst them, 
and almost all go armed with knives. The cli¬ 
mate of the town is cold and rigorous in winter, 
whilst the summer is oppressively hot. Arts and 
the comforts of life are in it a mere blank;—al¬ 
though fresh butter may be made there cheaper 
than the price paid for hog’s lard, there is none 
found. Strawberries had only just appeared on 
our arrival, and were not yet ripe. The trade of 
the place is in sulphur. I saw no female beauty, 
nor are there any public amusements in Girgenti; 
the windows of houses in the streets are mostty 
unglazed, and on the whole it forms a wretched 
sojourn. Signor Politi has a collection of prints 
and ancient vases, with a few antique statues, 
which is interesting, but much too advanced in 
science for the people amongst whom he lives. 





( 141 ; 


CHAPTER XIX. 


MARSALA.—June 7, 1835. 


We left Girgenti on the 5th of June, and pro¬ 
ceeded on our way to Siculiana, which is at a dis¬ 
tance of eleven miles. On descending the hills 
we saw the small port of Girgenti, which contains 
few vessels, and those are principally engaged in 
the trade of sulphur. After we had gained the 
country we met a poor woman, who told us she had 
lost her husband; as we were not able to replace 
him, we gave her a trifle, and proceeded onward; 
all our inquiries after the missing individual were 
fruitless. Her sorrow was great and unaffected ; 
she was left amongst strangers without a pro¬ 
tector. At the port of Girgenti there is no admis¬ 
sion to quarantine. The second town we reached 
after Siculiana, was Monte Allegro; the road after¬ 
wards followed the sea-shore, but this being the 
time of year for planting rice, the trenched gutters 
prevented our passing along the level, and we 
were compelled to traverse the mountains, much 
to my annoyance. The third town we came to 




142 


MARSALA. 


was Sciacca. There are three large rivers to 
pass, and some bad road between Monte Allegro 
and Sciacca; the first is called Radine, the 
second Fiume di Rivela, and the - third Della 
Verdura. At this season, though full of water, 
they were passable with safety ; but in the 
winter it often happens that both mules and men 
are carried away and drowned by the foaming 
floods; indeed mails are lost, and from the fre¬ 
quency of mishaps in the conveyance of the posts, 
it is no unusual occurrence for triplicates of let¬ 
ters to be dispatched by merchants to their cor¬ 
respondents. The lower orders in Sicily, how¬ 
ever, and the couriers, are entitled to admiration 
from the dexterity they display in crossing broken 
ground and fording dangerous passes; hardy and 
active, they are undaunted by danger, and the 
habit of early education enables them to face 
perils at which the less practised would shudder, 
and from which the timorous shrink altogether. 
Their daring, however, though admirable and 
praiseworthy, does not ensure them success, and 
the want of high roads is one of the greatest mi¬ 
series under which Sicily at present suffers. Near 
Sciacca there is a mountain called San Calo- 
gero, which sends down to the neighbourhood of 
that town, a distance of one mile, a stream of boil¬ 
ing water, almost hot enough to harden an egg at 
the termination of its transmission. Indeed, from 
almost every part of the ground spring burning 


MARSALA. 


143 


streams of sulphuretted liquid. The natives use 
it for baths, and drink it as an aperient: it is reck¬ 
oned very beneficial in some stages of syphilitic 
complaints. But the most famous drink is from 
a cold spring called by the appropriate name of 
Acqua Santa. Nearly opposite to Sciacca, at the 
distance of five-and-twenty miles, is the volcanic 
island of Ferdinandea, which rose some years ago 
from the ocean, but has now sunk again to a few 
feet below its level. It was discovered by the 
British, but claimed afterwards by, and ceded to, 
the King of Naples. The island of Pantalaria, 
also volcanic in its origin, is removed fifty miles 
from the coast towards the south, and was called 
by the ancients Cossina. It has a crater amongst 
its mountains, sulphur springs, one of cold medi¬ 
cinal water, and presents nearly the same soil 
and natural objects as are to be seen round Sci¬ 
acca. The approach to the town of Sciacca is 
very beautiful, being through olive-grounds and 
corn-fields, hedged with the Agave and Indian 
fig, and displaying plantations of mulberry-trees; 
and the position of the city itself is very pic¬ 
turesque. It is above the plain on an eminence, 
and commands a view of all the adjacent coast. 
On the evening of our arrival, a fine clear day in 
June, we saw the whole sea studded with fishing- 
boats under sail. The town of Sciacca contains 
the same population as that of Girgenti. It was . 
the birth-place of Agathocles, a potters son, who 


144 


MARSALA. 


afterwards became as illustrious as his birth was 
obscure. In the middle of the town there is a 
small but pretty garden, opposite the house of, 
and belonging to, the Marchese di San Giacomo, 
which is adorned with inscriptions on slabs of 
marble, by no means however analogous to its po¬ 
sition, and amongst the rest with the following:— 

“ Qui fiori, qui frutta, aure ridenti liete, 

Qui la pace del cuore, qui la quiete.” 

iC Here mingle fruits and flowers, the balmy breeze, 
Contented heart, and tranquil ease — 

and all this within a few yards of a dusty tho¬ 
roughfare. I saw the residence and the picture 
gallery of the marquis, but there were in it no 
paintings of value. The best was a dark portrait, 
apparently by the Calabrese. The delicious 
warmth of the atmosphere, and the flourishing 
aspect of all nature, as we proceeded on our jour¬ 
ney, recalled to my mind the verses of Casimir 
De la Vigne, the French poet, where he says— 

“ L’onde avec volupte caresse le rivage, 

Les oiseaux palpitans sous leur toit de feuillage, 
Celebrent leurs plaisirs par de tendres concerts, 

Des gpuffres de Thetis, tous les monstres informes, 

Font bouillonner les flots amers, 

Des elans amoureux de leurs masses enormes; 

Les papillons legers se cherchent sur les fleurs; 

Et par un doux hymen confondent leurs couleurs.” 

All around us in this happy region was in sere- 


MARSALA. 


145 


nity and love. The distance from Sciacca to 
Castel dei Veterani, a neat town with eight thou¬ 
sand inhabitants, is four-and-twenty miles. The 
road is partly on the sea-shore, consequently level, 
and the remainder is by no means bad. We 
found on our arrival a very clean inn, and good 
beds, and were free from mosquitos, gnats, and 
fleas, the general attendants on repose in a warm 
climate, and by which we had been nearly devour¬ 
ed at Sciacca, where we were obliged to lodge in 
a private house, every bed at the inns being occu¬ 
pied. The fleas in that place would have done 
honour to Egypt, and although the host was paid 
three shillings English in value of Sicilian money 
for each bed, he was not satisfied. I may men¬ 
tion that out of the frequented roads in Sicily all 
charges are exorbitant, more particularly when 
the quality of what you get is considered. Shortly 
before reaching Castel dei Veterani, there is a 
very fine forest of cork trees; indeed, nothing can 
exceed the beauty of the high lands and country 
in general in the island ; every sweet-scented 
flower grows wild, every ornamented shrub adorns 
the way; 

“ Whilst sea-born gales their gelid wings expand, 

To winnow fragrance round this smiling land.” 

Nothing is wanting to render these spots Elysian 
fields, save a little more culture and industry 
on the part of the inhabitants. The sun here at 

L 


146 


M A USA LA. 


this season is warm, but not oppressively hot, 
the violence of its rays are tempered by the 
bracing zephyrs of the ocean. What was once a 
hospital for decayed soldiers has now become a 
town ; Castel dei Veterani, as the name signifies, 
having been a depot for invalids. In the church 
of San Giovanni Battista there is a fine statue of 
Christ by Gagini, of whom I have made mention 
in my notice of Messina, and three tolerable pic¬ 
tures, much better indeed than those generally 
seen in the Sicilian churches. One represents 
the decapitation of Saint John, and is painted in 
the style of Gerrardo della Notte. There is a 
good effect of torch-light in the painting, but it is 
by no means so dark a picture as most of those I 
have seen attributed to its supposed father. The 
two others are, one of San Filippi Neri in adora¬ 
tion, which is the w 7 orst of the number, and a 
Conception, called by the name of Morealese, but 
I question whether it be by that painter. 

The road which we took from Castel dei Veterani 
to Marsala is thirty-two miles in distance ; there 
is a shorter way, but we had heard rumours of 
robbers, and were glad to compromise for safety 
by a little personal inconvenience. I may however 
mention that it is very rare for the traveller to be 
attacked by bandits in Sicily; he may, generally 
speaking, travel with gold in his hand, and this 
circumstance must impress the world with a 
favourable opinion of the islanders, when it is 


MARSALA. 


147 


considered that they are all poor, that the police 
is generally supine and careless, and that in the 
solitudes which occur, crimes might be committed 
with facility, and often, I should imagine, without 
any apprehension of detection. All the way from 
the place we left to Marsala wheeled carriages 
can be used. The view on leaving Castel dei 
Veterani is very fine; after proceeding five miles, 
the traveller passes a pretty village called Campo 
Bello, and then scarcely a town occurs till you 
reach Marsala—we passed round Mazzara. Of 
Marsala I can say nothing interesting; the wine 
depositories of Mr. Woodhouse attracted my at¬ 
tention as I entered the place, and are constructed 
on a similar plan to the “ bodegas” of Xeres in 
Spain. The town occupies one side of the point 
of Boes, formerly Lilybseum, on which was built 
the city of that name. Cicero styled it “ splen¬ 
did,” and it was a place of consequence during 
the Punic wars. Its famous port has been ruined, 
not by the Greeks, the Romans, or the Carthagi¬ 
nians, but by the Spaniards of modern times. It 
was suggested to Escurialar Philip by John of 
Austria, who had the command of the fleet at 
that time endeavouring to take Tunis, to fill up 
this port in order to prevent an attack on the town 
by the Moors, and to be able to save it in the 
event of one. This fatal step was taken; large 
stones were sunk, rocks were blasted to collect 
materials for a bottom, and destruction ensued to 

l 2 


148 


MAttSALA. 


the trade of Marsala and the west of Sicily. At 
the point of the promontory, Solinus and Isidorus 
say that the Cumae an Sibyl reposes, and the vulgar 
have been credulous enough to suppose that those 
who drank that water obtained the gift of pro¬ 
phecy. One imposture begets another; villainy is 
never at a stop; a proverb in Spain has it, “ Una 
mentira es hija di algo/’ “ A lie must have a 
parent; ” and thus are the human race led step 
by step in delusion. 




( 149 ) 


CHAPTER XX. 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


I made an excursion to this place, which grati¬ 
fied my curiosity, though there was scarcely any 
thing to see. Its history I give as it has come by 
tradition. At some few miles distance to the 
south-east of Castel dei Veterani, and between 
it and Sciacca, are the remains of a town named 
Selinuntum by the ancients, and called Palmosa 
by Virgil, from the circumstance of its numerous 
palm plantations, now extinct, but the leaves of 
which are to be seen on the various coins that 
were struck at its mint. The ruins are between 
two hills, and very near to the sea, amongst 
which are discoverable the sites of three large 
temples, although the divinities to whom they 
were consecrated are not determined nor known 
to the moderns: a few shafts of pillars, however, 
are all that remain of their erection. The first of 
these, which is to the east, has been conjectured 
to have been larger than any other known monu¬ 
ment of antiquity in the island, if the temple of 




150 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


Olympian Jupiter at Agrigentum be excepted. 
The width is said to have been one hundred and 
ninety palmi, and the length four hundred and 
twenty-five; that of Ephesus, dedicated to Diana, 
is four hundred and fifty-five in length, and two 
hundred and twenty in width, whilst the one of 
Olympian Jupiter in Agrigentum has four hun¬ 
dred and seventy palmi in length, and two hun¬ 
dred and thirty in width; thus exceeding in di¬ 
mensions both the others. This temple preceded 
by nearly a century the foundation of those of 
Diana in Magnesia, and Bacchus in Teos, which 
were built by the architect Hermogenes. Of these 
fine edifices we see broken capitals scattered 
about, which are used as hearth-stones by the 
shepherds, and their plans are discoverable, but 
their glory gone. The road to them lies between 
plantations of cork-trees, and is encumbered with 
brushwood, so as to cost trouble in passing; and 
it seems as if nature was conspiring with time to 
conceal the remains of this patriarchal city. Be¬ 
sides the three temples I have already mentioned, 
traces are to be found, though very indistinct, of 
three other buildings. All we can judge from 
induces us to believe that the whole were of the 
Doric order. At about two miles’ distance from 
this spot are to be seen, I am told, the quarries 
from whence the stone was extracted for building 
these temples, and it is observed that pieces of 
mineral of the dimension of thirteen palmi in dia- 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


151 


meter, and nine feet high, were taken out entire, 
fit for building, and requiring only transportation 
to the place of use, which proves that the Greeks 
were much better acquainted with the machinery 
for moving large masses than the moderns. Va¬ 
rious are the opinions of writers to account for 
the causes of decay and ruin in these temples; 
some opine that they proceeded from an earth¬ 
quake, whilst others, amongst whom is the re¬ 
spectable Biscari, say from the violence of Han¬ 
nibal. In the winter of the year 1823 two English 
architects, Messrs. Harris and Angel, (the former 
of whom died of malaria indigenous to the place, 
in July following,) undertook, with a permission 
from Naples, to make excavations, and by their 
researches several metopes were found, with 
figures engraved upon them, but still these are 
essentially obscure, and though forming a fine 
field for the learned to luxuriate in with conjec¬ 
ture and criticism, and particularly interesting to 
the antiquarian, nothing certain or definite is to 
be ascertained from them. These objects of anti¬ 
quity, however, and every other article of value 
which had been disinterred by the spirited adven¬ 
turers in science, were, with unexampled bad 
faith, seized by the rascally government, and 
transferred to Naples and to Palermo. One 
Englishman lost his life, and both their labour, 
and these metopes, which are in the Museum at 
Palermo, sculptures anterior to the Trojan war, 


152 


ruins of selinuntum. 


and inestimable as objects of antiquity, have been 
fraudulently withheld from their just acquirer. 
There were in all ten, but 1 only have seen five; 
the others appear wanting. — Necessity is the 
mother of invention, and the persecution of a 
people in one country is recompensed to others 
by colonies, and introduces oftentimes arts and 
letters in foreign lands where they are most 
wanted. The Phoenicians, always commercial 
and migratory, and expelled at last from Syria by 
Joshua the general of the Jews, carried with them 
into Sicily their most industrious inhabitants, 
adopted the motto of 

“ Omne solum forti patria est,” 

and founded Selinuntum, Palermo, and other 
towns. They acquired courage and force by 
change of scene and the necessity for exertion, 
and were repaid for their adventure. They esta¬ 
blished Carthage in Africa, Cadiz in Spain, and the 
glorious anticipated harvest of tin tempted them 
to Britain; they then penetrated amongst the skin- 
clad natives of the Rhine in search of amber, and 
founded “ Culm ” (Cologne). A second Tyre 
rose at their command in the Persian Gulf. They 
are considered the inventors of glass of the purple 
colour, to which they gave a name, the art of dye¬ 
ing, and the letters of the alphabet. When the 
Jews prevailed against Cadmus, he brought the 
instruction and the laws of his predecessors 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


153 


amongst a hitherto barbarous people, and civilized 
the western world; and the archives of the Jews 
themselves, and what Christians consider as in¬ 
spired writings, would possibly have perished, or 
remained hidden and unknown, had not his coun¬ 
trymen communicated the light of learning by 
the use of letters, and diffused the fire of know¬ 
ledge to warm the torpid intellects of the ignorant 
and savage hordes of the Mediterranean. The 
foundation of Selinuntum is supposed to be so 
remote in date as a hundred years before the 
Troj an war. The name we now know it by is 
received from the Greeks, who expelled its foun¬ 
ders, and possessed themselves of it, calling it 
Selinuns, from much wild parsley on the banks of 
a neighbouring small river; deviating in this case 
from the common rule of antiquity which chris¬ 
tened countries and towns after gods, goddesses, 
or the illustrious. It was afterwards inhabited 
by the Syracusans under Gelon. The extent of 
its dominion was from Sciacca to the point of 
Lilybaeum. Daedalus, on coming into Sicily, 
visited Selinuntum, and constructed there a bath 
famous for gradually transmitting heat. Empe¬ 
docles of Agrigentum rendered the inhabitants an 
important service by curing a pestilential marsh 
by the introduction of a current of spring-water 
which existed in their neighbourhood, and for 
this he received divine honours, paid him on the 
sea-shore. Perhaps, indeed, some one of the 


154 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


temples which we now see may have been erected 
on this occasion. At that period a number of 
cities almost incredible adorned Sicily, all rich 
and powerful, all democratic in their origin till 
falling into the hands of a designing leader, all 
governed by their own laws: so much was this 
the case, that it is scarcely possible to observe a 
single spot of the country, or a single stone of the 
highways, without their recalling to mind some¬ 
thing of interest; nor to observe the neglected 
villages, the streets of houses with unglazed 
windows now occupying the places of palaces, 
the careless agriculture, and the general decline 
of wealth, without feeling commiseration and sym¬ 
pathy for the unfortunate inhabitants of this once 
great and commercial and warlike land. 

After various fluctuations of fortune, Selinuntum 
fell into the hands of Hannibal, and was destroyed. 
Their allies, the Syracusans, arrived too late to 
assist them, but sent heralds to the conqueror, 
entreating that the temples of the town should 
be spared. He replied that the gods were hostile 
to the Selinuntines, and had already left the 
place. The character of Hannibal has always ex¬ 
cited the attention of the curious : he was rough, 
and bred to camps, yet had not neglected learning; 
he was a proficient in Greek, the fashionable lan¬ 
guage of the days in which he lived. He had 
no religion, nor could be bound by any ties; he 
believed in no divinity, and understood nothing of 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


155 


the compulsory nature of an oath, save what he 
offered when a child, of eternal enmity to the 
Romans, at the shrines of the Carthaginian gods. 
He achieved great things; he overran Spain, 
Sicily, and Italy, and had the honour of forcing 
a passage across the Alps, which none had at¬ 
tempted save Hercules. He died an exile and in 
bondage, yet a terror to his enemies to the last 
hour of life. Although an excellent politician, he 
was a greater general, and taken altogether, may 
be considered the most extraordinary character 
of the age in which he lived. Though he has 
met no favour from the Roman historians, his 
deeds are confessed, and speak for themselves. 
Hermocrates of Syracuse rebuilt Selinuntum in 
part, and it still existed in the time of Strabo; 
but it was again dismantled by the Saracens when 
they penetrated into Sicily, and the Normans 
completed the ruin of what little had been left by 
the Mussulmans. The tragical fate of the good 
Hermocrates deserves mention. He was banished 
from Syracuse for the lenity he showed to Nicias 
and the Athenian prisoners, and murdered with 
relentless barbarity on his return home. The 
religion of the Selinuntines may be considered to 
have been the same as that of the Greeks. Their 
belief was that a Deity existed whose nod shook 
the loftiest mountains, and caused all nature to 
tremble; that other subordinate gods existed, 
endued with more or less power, and formed a 


156 


RUINS OF SELIN UNTUM. 


link between man and the Supreme Being; that 
the eminently good and great amongst the human 
species during life were after death honoured with 
an elevation to the rank of deities, and seated 
amongst the magnates of the sky. This is cer¬ 
tainly an elegant and ennobling mythology; it 
points out an immediate recompense for heroic 
deeds, and offers the brightest rewards for suffer¬ 
ing virtue. The Christian church has either 
copied from or followed the heathen in this par¬ 
ticular, and the fertile beatification of saints which 
the Roman calendar displays has added perhaps 
as many to the heavens as Jupiter could have 
claimed from his heathen worshippers. 

Che qualsisia religion piu santa 
Sovra la terra sostener non puossi, 

Se miracoli ai popoli non vanta 
Maravigliosi oltre ogni modo, e grossi; 

Fu ognor la fe l’appoggio suo primario, 

E tutt’ altro non e che secondario.* 

% 

The Greeks were extremely pious, and equally 
superstitious. It is difficult indeed to separate 
piety and superstition; the mind which will admit 
a little from faith contrary to reason, may extend 
in many instances its credulity much farther; we 
believe what we wish, and delusion is the daugh¬ 
ter of Hope in all stages of the admission of evi- 


* Casti, Animali Parlanti, canto xvii. 


RUINS OF SELINIJNTUM. 


157 


dence. The most ancient Sicilian divinities were 
Ceres, Proserpine, and Bacchus, surnamed the 
Siculian, who exerted himself for the benefit of 
man, who planted the grape, and encouraged hus¬ 
bandry. He was the son of Jupiter by Ceres: 
there was another god of the same name, equally 
begotten by Jupiter, but from the embraces of 
Semele. He is represented armed with a thyrsus, 
accompanied by a host of drunkards and fauns, 
and is fabled to have been the conqueror of India. 
At Selinuntum the favourite gods were Jupiter, 
Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, and the goddess Ibla. 
Modern readers may smile at an enumeration 
of names which they consider as empty sounds, 
and at the attribution of divine qualities to what 
never had an existence; but were the ages re¬ 
versed, perhaps some modern mysteries and doc¬ 
trines would distort with laughter the muscles of 
a very good heathen, and would appear to him 
much more incomprehensible than the propitia¬ 
tion of his gods with the sacrifice of a lamb, or 
the payment of an obolus to the ferryman of the 
Styx does to us. In any case, therefore, it be¬ 
comes human nature to abstain from dogmatism, 
and when each individual recollects how often 
experience has obliged him to change in opinion 
on subjects which at one time appeared to admit 
of no doubt or controversy, how often he has been 
deceived in the plainest matters, and how little 




158 RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 

human evidence is to be trusted—how great and 
mysterious all around us is, and how weak and 
short-sighted a creature man is himself—he will 
perhaps be content with inculcating the universal 
precept of every faith, “ do to others as you would 
be done by,” and respecting, as in duty bound, 
his own creed, leave others to theirs without any 
comment or discussion. 

MAZZARA. 

We went round Mazzara, between Castel dei 
Veterani and Marsala. The walls look much like 
the ancient Roman ones at Seville, and were 
evidently reared by the same people; they are 
with little apertures all round the top, square cut, 
and very fine; no doubt for resisting an attack 
with spears, but of no avail against the artillery 
of the modem day. No remains, it is said, are to 
be seen of the ancient city, which had its origin 
from the Selinuntines, as had likewise that of 
Castel dei Veterani, as I have called it. In the 
year of Rome 542, when that republic made the 
conquest of Sicily, the people of Mazzara joined 
themselves to the Romans; they always remained 
friends with their protectors, and were parti¬ 
cularly favoured by them under Trajan. Some 
have erroneously imagined that Selinuntum once 
existed where Mazzara now stands. The Geme- 


RUINS OF SELINUNTUM. 


159 


sian or Iliac Lake, which Empedocles rendered 
wholesome from being pestilential and impure, 
and which is near to where I have noted the ruins 
of Selinuntum, is proof to the contrary; and 
indeed this is also mentioned by Diodorus Si¬ 
culus. 




(-160 ) 


CHAPTER XXI. 


PALERMO.—June 10, 1835. 


Trapani contains nearly thirty thousand inhabit¬ 
ants, and reception has now been made in the 
harbour for vessels desirous of performing quaran¬ 
tine. This is an accommodation which all coming 
from the Levant will be benefited by, and ought 
to be thankful for, as it dispenses with the ne¬ 
cessity for a voyage to Palermo, which was for¬ 
merly required. The distance from Marsala to 
Trapani is eighteen miles, all of it carriageable. 
Immediately you leave the former town you are 
on a level road, and have in sight the three pretty 
islands of Levanso, Favignana, and Maretimo, 
formerly called Phorbantia, iEgusa, and Hiera, 
and named collectively the Insulae iEgades. They 
are famous for being on the spot where the battle 
took place between Lutatius and Hamilcar, which 
compelled the Carthaginians to a peace—on which 
occasion the temple of Janus was closed at Rome. 
The whole of the land between Marsala and Tra¬ 
pani, and indeed the entire soil, is full of salt 




PALERMO. 


161 


mines. At six miles from Marsala is San Panta- 
leone, which is separated from the continent by a 
strait of half a mile of water in one part, and, 
under the promontory called of San Todaro, of 
two miles. In this island existed the ancient 
town of Mozia. It sustained a siege, and was 
taken by Dionysius the elder of Syracuse, but 
was afterwards recovered by the Carthaginians 
under Imilcon, in whose alliance it formerly was. 
I observed no other objects of interest on the 
road to Trapani save these; but I must not omit 
to mention that the small island of Buon Con- 
siglio is supposed to have been the place where 
Procida and Palmerio Abbate combined the plot 
to murder the French at the Sicilian Vespers. As 
the whole of the road from Trapani to Palermo, 
a distance of sixty-eight miles, can be performed 
in a four-wheeled carriage, I repined at the tardy 
movements of my lettiga: however, there was 
now no remedy, and I was not desirous of the in¬ 
cumbrance and expense of a double conveyance. 
The leisure I had to observe the scenery some¬ 
what compensated for my dilatory movements on 
the road, and it is beautiful all the way. The 
descent upon Palermo, with the sea in view, 
winding amongst mountains, which form sides 
to a plain and valley, unfolded an enchanting 
scene, and the sight was absorbed by trees and 
shrubs steeped in glowing green, and a carpet 


M 


1G2 


SEGESTA. 


sparkling with flowers and herbs of every colour 
and dimension. 

SEGESTA. 

The heroes of antiquity do not always owe their 
origin to dignified progenitors. Acestes, or Eges- 
tus, whose name has descended to this town, of 
which only one temple remains, is said to have 
been begotten by a beautiful white dog upon a 
Trojan damsel, who had wandered into Sicily, 
and whom the river god Crisinus, enamoured of 
her charms whilst she performed her ablutions in 
his waters, enjoyed under that form. It is amongst 
us prejudiced people considered as an insult to be 
called the offspring of a female of the canine race, 
however much the term may be merited; but it 
did not, it seems, amongst the ancients confer 
obloquy to be accounted the descendants of a 
dog, when a divinity assumed that shape. The 
town of Segesta was destroyed by Agathocles, and 
razed to its foundations, for having taken part 
with the Carthaginians, who were at war with the 
Syracusans, over whom he reigned. One temple 
however remains, and it is the most perfect and 
best preserved of all which exist in Sicily. I will 
give the description of it by Ferrara, which is 
better than what a person like myself, less skilled 
in architecture, could impart. “ This edifice has 
thirty-six columns, which are Doric, twelve for 


SEGESTA. 


1G3 


each side, and six for each end. These form the 
peristyle round the ark, of which however nothing* 
remains. The front view is turned to the east, 
and is in contrariety of position to what Vitruvius 
states to have been the constant custom of the 
Greeks, who turned it to the west; but this de¬ 
viation probably arose from a wish to make it 
front the city, and because the hill on which it is 
seated can only be approached on that side, being* 
surrounded by mountains, rocks, and precipices, 
on all the others. The edifice is raised on a 
basement of four grades or steps. All this ex¬ 
terior is preserved, excepting some portion of 
the last step, on which repose the columns. 
These latter are formed, some of ten, some eleven, 
and some twelve, pieces of rounded stone, and of 
unequal height. The length of the temple is one 
hundred and eighty palmi, taken from the centre 
of the angular columns, and its width sixty-eight. 
The columns are placed four inches to the interior 
of the corner of the last grade or step. Each of 
the other steps is an Italian palmi and a half in 
width. All the component pieces of the steps 
have an irregular prominence of the same stone, 
in form of a curb, and these are all of different 
height and width, which shows that they were 
left so purposely, for the convenience of transport, 
or in order to bring them near together without 
injury. The columns are rounded, and smooth 
in surface, and are six feet or palmi in diameter, 

m 2 


1C4 


SEGESTA. 


without counting an increase of a width which 
they have at the top and base, of some inches— 
for they are of a form converging to the centre. 
Such irregularities are observed in all the different 
pieces of the temple, and proceeded probably 
from a desire in the architect to allow some more 
stone than the necessary quantity for all extremi¬ 
ties, corners, and tops, in case of their being 
chipped during setting. The columns are thirty 
feet in height, and the distance between them 
unequal. The heads of the pillars are three pal mi 
and a third high, and they have in the ovolos, 
which are most elegantly curved, three fillets 
(listellini), with each of them three plain facets, 
(faccie piane), and their division (spartimento). 
Each of the two parts of the architrave is thirteen 
pal mi in length, by more than four in height. 
The frieze has its triglyphs(triglifi) and its metopes. 
Every triglyph is four pal mi in height, by two and a 
half in width. The metopes are the same height 
as the triglyphs, and square. The order of the 
triglyphs is one in the centre of the column, and 
another in the centre of the architrave. All are 
equidistant, save those of the angles, which are 
farther apart, in order to suit better the greater 
length of those parts of the architrave. The me¬ 
topes have no ornament in their squares. The 
“ cornicione,” two feet and a half high, has equal 
projection on the plane of the frieze; it has the 
metopes with small distances between them, or- 


SEG ESTA. 


165 


namented with three rows of cylindric “ gocciole” 
in the four angles. The four metopes have each a 
flower in relief in the middle, which is the only 
ornament the temple possesses. The cornice of 
the frontispiece has the “timpano” at the obtuse 
angle, eight feet and a half above the cornicione, 
and no indication appears of any ornament having 
been there. It is unknown at what period this 
temple was erected, and equally so to what divi¬ 
nity it was dedicated. The date of its foundation 
must have been in the prosperous times of the 
city which contained it. What is certain is, that 
it was never finished, and perhaps the Segestans 
were diverted from its termination by the calami¬ 
ties of war, in the same manner as the Agrigen- 
tines desisted from their temple of Olympian Ju¬ 
piter by a like cause, before it was complete. 
The cause of its preservation after the ruin and 
during the destruction of Segesta, may have been 
its distance from that town.” Having translated 
the description of this building as given by Fer¬ 
rara, I will now give an account of some archi¬ 
tectural words, which perhaps may render it more 
easy to be understood: I must however premise 
that either plates or models, and indeed both, are 
absolutely necessary for acquiring a knowledge 
of the art which raises habitations from the dull 
quarry. Ovolo means, as may be imagined, an 
oval or egg-shaped slab, as to its sides, on the ex- 


166 


SEGESTA. 


treme top of the building; listellini are parts 
which enclose others of stone, either great or 
small, and form ribs; faccie piane are sides which 
form the salient angle of the building; triglifi are 
a work of square stone sunk at right angles in the 
building, and each has three ribs or fillets. Me¬ 
topes are the squares between the triglifi in the 
Doric order, and were sometimes engraved with 
figures of animals, or fruit, or flowers. Corni- 
cione is the part above the frieze. Timpano is 
the part at the bottom of the frontispiece; it is 
triangular, and stands on the cornice of the inta- 
volato. The intavolato forms an S, and is covered 
with two other cornices. 

On ascending the hill which leads to Caltafimi, 
an angle of the road brings you in view of the 
temple of Segesta, at a distance of about three 
miles. Lofty and precipitous mountains, clothed 
with verdure, and descending to join in the vale 
below, form the two sides of the prospect; varied 
and uneven ground is the stage on which the eye 
reposes, and in the distance, bounded by the ho¬ 
rizon, on a carpet of green sward shining in the 
sun, we perceived this glorious monument of 
times gone by. No village is to be seen, no house 
appears, no road indicates an approach to the 
commerce and bustle of life: the building rises 
light from its lovely base, and seems to have been 
dropped in the site it occupies by some genius 


SEGESTA. 


167 


from above. After much that I have seen of the 
busy world, and much that I, like all, have suf¬ 
fered, and much as the romance of youth is chilled 
by the experience of life when we mature in age, 
I confess that a thrill of enthusiasm, mixed with 
a deep feeling of devotion, passes through my 
frame at such an aspect, and I respected the 
memory and admired the opinions of the people 
who had chosen this most lovely situation for the 
construction of an edifice of worship, believing 
that the divinities might be tempted from on high 
by its beauty to attend on their sacrifices, and 
mingle with their feasts. At the rise and setting 
of the sun, when the mountains cast their long 
shadows on the plain, and a dubious light trembles 
between these venerable columns, a contemplative 
mind will turn back to their founders, now no 
more, with deeper interest, and rise from the 
harmony of nature below to that of the celestial 
residences above, and strive to unite itself with 
the spirit of the Maker of the universe, breathing 
the prayer of peace to all mankind, and obedi¬ 
ence to his will on whom all depend. As the 
traveller approaches Palermo, he has the sea¬ 
shore on his left the whole way; and in the same 
direction, from the gulf of Castelloamare, is to be 
seen a still smaller one, of which the western 
cape is called “ Muro di Carini.” There existed 
the ancient Icara, devastated by Nicias, of which 


1G8 


SEGESTA. 


perhaps the memory would have expired and 
been obliterated, had it not been the birth-place 
of a beauty who immortalized her parent soil. 
Lais, whose attractions have become proverbial, 
and who, contrary to the common custom of weak 
feminine nature, seems to have preserved her 
charms till they were surrendered, late in life, to 
all-subduing death, was taken by the victorious 
Greek who desolated her city, when only seven 
years of age, to Corinth, and sold as a slave. 
There she remained long enough to gain the name 
of the Corinthian. She was daughter of Timandra, 
the favourite mistress of Alcibiades. Already 
robbed of her virtue, and uncertain of the yet 
harder fate to which she might be abandoned, 
she determined to profit by the severe lesson 
taught her by the rigours of adversity, and that 
if it was not her fortune to be chaste, she would 
at least be rich. Money she knew gave power, 
and power commanded what are called friends. 
Tt was in reference to her exorbitant exactions 
that the line was written, which has passed into a 
proverb— 

“Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.” 

In her advanced years she passed into Thessaly 
in company with a favourite youth, but the women 
of that country, apprehensive lest, old as she was, 
she should corrupt their husbands, are said to 


SEGESTA. 


169 


have caused her to be assassinated in the temple 
of Venus, about three hundred and forty years 
before the Christian era. Her fame has survived 
longer than that of perhaps any other beauty save 
Helen. 




CHAPTER XXII. 


THE TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PALERMO. 


It is observable during the tunny season that the 
weather here is always dull and cloudy; to-day, 
the 13th of June, it has rained incessantly. When 
the fishermen obtain a very fine specimen of the 
fish, which sometimes reaches the weight of seven 
hundred pounds, or even more, they carry it 
round the town, accompanied with a drum, to 
celebrate its capture. In spite of the untoward 
state of the weather, I visited the “ Favorita,” 
or royal garden, and was much gratified with 
what I saw. It is several miles in length; but 
the ornamental walks are few in number, and 
limited in extent. There is one broad promenade, 
with flower borders on each side, which are cut 
in various forms. The whole ground is bounded 
on one side by the mountains of the country, and 
on the other by a high wall, which separates it 
from the public road. There is good shooting in 
the “ bosco,” or wood ; but the present king lets 
out both it and the kitchen garden, and drains a 




TOWN OF PALERMO. 


171 


revenue from what the former monarchs con¬ 
sidered as a luxury sacred to the enjoyment of 
royalty. The building outside is of the Chinese 
fashion, and a similar arrangement prevails in its 
interior, which did not strike me as being either 
very elegant or noble. In one of the lower apart¬ 
ments there is a set of prints from drawings by 
Morland, the English artist, which occupy almost 
the whole room. The dining saloon, which is 
inconveniently placed close to a staircase, and 
forms part of a passage to another, has the table 
service supplied from below by pullies, which 
raise and let down the dishes as they are wanted. 
This is a plan for which we are indebted to Har¬ 
lequin, that necromancer of pantomime on the 
stage, and by which he performs his mutations; 
but it has since been adopted by some of my 
friends in England with success, as a more easy 
mode of being expeditiously served at dinner. In 
one of the receiving rooms there is a table of some 
size, formed from a beautiful specimen of petrified 
work, and there are also silk hangings, presented 
by the Shah of Persia, which are remarkable for 
their beauty. It is interesting to observe that 
Ferdinand the Fourth, grandfather of the reigning 
prince, did not allow the weighty affairs of the 
crown and the dignity of his station to deaden 
the feelings of paternal affection and conjugal 
tenderness. In the bed-chamber he occupied 
are still to be seen small basso-relievo portraits of 


172 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


all his children, with mottos of regard below. 
Under that of his consort (for his own does not 
appear, and this hangs alone) is inscribed “ Me 
stesso”—“ Myself.” I turned from these scenes 
of luxury and recreation to contemplate what 
no good man can look on without sorrow, and no 
wicked man without dread, namely, the abode of 
maniacs, and the residence of those who live as not 
living, and who are only better than corpses, in¬ 
asmuch as that precious and last consolatory gift 
of heaven, hope, is not absolutely denied to them. 
The Baron Pisani, in the year 1824, undertook 
the care of this establishment, and in the interval 
of ten years he has remodelled it, and gained a 
credit to himself far above “ all Greek, all Roman 
fame.” His reputation has extended across the 
Atlantic, his merit is appreciated in America, and 
his services to humanity are dwelt upon, without 
prejudice to their being foreign, in England, that 
country of jobbers and jobbing in the care of the 
wretched. Throughout civilized Europe, the 
talents of the baron are already acknowledged, 
and his system approved. I will say something 
of the origin of this asylum for lunatics in Pa¬ 
lermo. The Norman princes, in the year 1071, 
dedicated a church to Saint John in the southern 
suburb of the town, to which afterwards an hos¬ 
pital for lepers was added by William the First, 
and it was called, from the purposes of its erec¬ 
tion, “ San Giovanni dei Lebbrosi.” This build- 


OF PALERMO. 


173 


ing having been subsequently consigned to the 
care of the senate of Palermo by Frederic the 
Second, and in 1419 added to the great hos¬ 
pital, was also used as an asylum for a certain 
number of insane persons; but the small space 
allowed, its unwholesome situation, and the 
consequently unfortunate condition of the poor 
invalids, caused the late Queen Maria Carolina of 
Austria, to remove the establishment to the hos¬ 
pital of Santa Teresa, a short distance from the 
outside of the town. This receptacle was how¬ 
ever badly kept, the invalids were sometimes ill- 
used and beat, and many, not incurably mad, 
became so from the filth of the building, the want 
of proper food, and the brutality of their guar¬ 
dians. In their present lodging, which more resem¬ 
bles a palace than a madhouse, there hangs against 
a court wall the portrait of a maniac who caused 
the death of a keeper who beat him, by the acci¬ 
dental wound from a reed he had in his hand, and 
with which he returned his blows. This has been 
affixed as an additional example to deter violence 
in the treatment of the prisoners. I saw here 
numberless apartments for every purpose; there 
are consultation rooms—rooms where the conva¬ 
lescent are allowed to see their friends, for both 
sexes—as well as for the display of the morbid 
anatomy of those who have exhibited uncommon 
and peculiar cases of phrenzy. There are for re¬ 
creation gardens adorned with grottos and images, 


174 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


and there is the representation of an ancient the¬ 
atre, the walls of which are painted with views of 
what Syracuse was supposed to be in former 
times. These works have all been executed, and 
the gardens are cleaned and kept neat, by the in¬ 
mates of the establishment, the celebrated con¬ 
ductor of it having ascertained that the surest and 
safest cure for madness is employment for the 
body and the mind, which may prevent the patient 
from dwelling on the cause of original malady, 
and improve at the same time the bodily health. 
He told me that on an average he was successful 
with rather more than forty cases in a hundred of 
ordinary occurrence, but in those of organic affec¬ 
tion all remedies became ineffectual, and all treat¬ 
ment vain. In looking into the statistical ac¬ 
counts of the establishment, I find that among the 
moral causes the largest number of cases of de¬ 
rangement in the male sex arise from domestic in¬ 
felicity, and in the female from jealousy and ob¬ 
structed love. Among the physical causes, both 
in men and women, the greatest number in the 
list given proceed from epilepsy. The grand pro¬ 
portion, however, is greater of those diseased from 
moral than from physical causes. From investi¬ 
gations made by the Baron Pisani, it may be 
affirmed that the epochs most liable to derange¬ 
ment in the human existence are the following:— 
Amongst males, from twenty years of age till 
forty; and amongst females, in the extremes of 


OF PALERMO. 


175 


age, either before twenty or after sixty. In the 
establishment to which I have alluded, violence 
is never employed, and chains are altogether dis¬ 
pensed with. In the court-yard allotted to those 
furiously mad, I saw one of the sufferers in a 
paroxysm of the disorder, which attracted the 
notice of the baron; he gently approached, fol¬ 
lowed by the keeper, took the outrageous inmate 
by the arm, and enclosed him in an empty cell 
which excluded the light, and all noise instantly 
ceased :—he did not, on being conducted thither, 
dare to offer the least outrage to his conductor, 
and it seems, although deprived of proper reason, 
he knew that he had misconducted himself, and 
submitted to his punishment without a murmur; 
being surrounded at the same time by at least 
twenty of his companions. I was told also that 
they indeed were aware of the punishment he 
underwent, and that this seclusion is much 
dreaded amongst all. It is doubtless a curious 
study to watch the evanescent rays of reason in 
the progress of the disease of madness, and were it 
attended with any profitable consequences, it 
would be a desirable object to trace the first symp¬ 
toms, from irregularity of mental power to the full 
development of insanity; but from all I can learn, 
no faith is to be entertained as to certain symp¬ 
toms either in the moral or physical organization 
in this cruel malady,—and most are decidedly 
insane, and the bodily functions are deranged. 


176 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


and physical causes complete and irremediable, 
before mental imbecility shows itself. The at¬ 
tendants on the maniacs in this establishment are 
generally for both sexes, and particularly for 
women, persons who have been mad themselves 
and since restored to reason. 

I will now turn from this painful subject to 
say something of the fine arts. Above the great 
altar of the church of the “ Santissima Rosaria di 
Domenico,” is placed a picture which may justly 
claim the admiration and attract the notice of the 
most fastidious and difficult critic in the arts. 
It is by Vandyke, and represents the Virgin seated 
in the clouds, with the infant Jesus in her lap, 
surrounded by angels, the grouping of which is 
admirable, and almost equals the inventions of 
Murillo in the same respect: in the ground plan 
are the <f Santa Rosaria/’ and a crowd of the holy 
in adoration. The subject is the intercession of 
the guardian saint at the time of the plague. 
The position of the Virgin and Child is the fa¬ 
vourite one of Vandyke, and I have seen it re¬ 
peated very many times in all copies and some 
originals of the master. The child is lying astride, 
partly on the lap of his mother, with the face 
turned to the spectator, and the arms extended 
in the air, with one of his mother’s hands to sup¬ 
port him. It struck me that the length of the 
female figures in the painting was out of propor¬ 
tion, but in this I may err, as the eye is easily 


OF PALERMO. 


177 


deceived by length of drapery, and the same has . 
also often the effect of making the head of a figure 
appear small, when in reality it turns out, from 
measurement, to be full-sized. The colouring and 
harmony of the whole are rich and in good keep¬ 
ing. In this church there are many other paint¬ 
ings, the best of which perhaps are two by Mo- 
realese ; one the coronation of Santa Rosaria, and 
the other the Descent of the Holy Ghost. From, 
hence I passed to what is called the Castle “della 
Zisa,” and surveyed with much pleasure this 
Moorish building—corresponding as it does with 
all similar edifices which I have seen in Spain and 
other places. The apartment which now remains, 
served doubtless in former times as a hall for 
audience, and is open on the ground-floor to a 
corridor. A spring of pellucid water flows from 
one of its walls, facing the grand entrance, and 
this is received in a square reservoir, which by a 
small gutter conveys the liquid into two others, 
all being on a level with the floor. The corridor 
is adorned with an Arabic legend on the frieze of 
its walls, but the modern embellishments which 
it has undergone are trifling, and in bad harmony 
with the ancient construction of the building. 
The name of Zisa is a corruption probably of the 
Arabic word “ Alaaziz,” which signifies “ magni¬ 
ficent.” A tradition recounts that this building 
was in the olden time both larger and more splen¬ 
did than we now find it. It was seated amongst 


N 


178 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


gardens, and had a reservoir for fish, with subter¬ 
raneous communications, (as was usual with the 
Arabs in all their buildings of importance,) which 
communicated to other palaces and castles in the 
neighbourhood. The object however of this erec¬ 
tion is still doubtful, after all the investigations 
and discussions of the learned ; but Professor 
Morso, author of a work on the antiquities of Pa¬ 
lermo, inclines to the opinion that it served as 
a place of recreation to the Arab chiefs resident 
there, and not a Moorish college or university, as 
has been supposed by some. The Arabic legend 
or inscription is merely in praise of the Divinity, 
and has nothing to do with the history of the edi¬ 
fice it embellishes, nor does it throw any light on 
that subject. A church called also “ Della Zisa” 
is near at hand, and contains a painting of Santa 
Anna by Morealese. It is of the fathers of the 
third order of Saint Francis. I visited the church 
of the “ Macellai,” which is in an obscure part of 
Palermo, but found nothing there of any value to 
the curious. I was tempted to the place by a 
priest, who desired me to buy a representation of 
King David viewing the charms of Bathsheba, 
in his possession, certainly a peculiar subject 
for an ecclesiastic to be possessed of, and what 
would be called in Spanish “ cosa verdebut I 
resisted his solicitations, as well in this case as in 
the exhibition of a Susanna, who looked any thing 
but chaste, and which the reverend proprietor told 


OF PALERMO. 


179 


me was a companion picture to the other. The 
pencil of great painters has never been so ill em¬ 
ployed as in depicting histories, which may pass 
without offence to modesty or injury to youth in 
the severe narratives of holy writ, but which, when 
exposed under the seductive colours of a warm 
imagination, heat the youthful blood by represen¬ 
tation, and cause danger to the moral sentiments 
of all who behold them. The plain which sur¬ 
rounds Palermo is one of the loveliest spots in the 
island. Its verdure, unlike what is seen in other 
countries of the same latitude, is always fresh and 
luxuriant, for there are springs without number, 
and perpetual rivulets trickling from the moun¬ 
tains, which refresh the thirsty plants amidst the 
ardours of the sun, whilst the fertility of the soil 
encourages the strength and luxuriance of vege¬ 
table nature. Elegant country-houses are spread 
in every direction over this charming neighbour¬ 
hood, and are built with equal regard to good 
taste and convenience, resembling the German 
villas, and surrounded by highly cultivated gar¬ 
dens. To these retreats the nobility of the island 
retire to enjoy themselves; and as almost every 
one who is noble, or even rich, has his residence 
out of the town, the whole plain is one pleasure- 
ground, and is absolutely studded with richly culti¬ 
vated spots. Two larger streams, amongst the many 
small, meander from hence to the sea, and one 
in particular, called “ Oreto,” has been rendered 

n 2 


180 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


famous for the victory achieved on its banks by 
the Roman consul Metellus over the Carthaginian 
forces of Asdrubal. Even here, it seems, there is no 
escape from the inroads of war and human crime : 
why cannot we gaze on these sequestered shades 
and verdant bowers, without having the reflection 
pass across our minds that blood has sullied the 
crystal tide, and polluted the pure element—that 
streams formed and flowing for the benefit of man, 
reflecting the beams of living day, and the hues 
of lovely flowers, have been witnesses that mortal 
rage respects no sanctuary, and glows as fiercely 
amidst an Eden as within the barren limits of a 
volcano or a desert. The other of the two rivers 
is called the “ Torrenti dei Ficarizzi.*’ In Pa¬ 
lermo, which is a town abounding with water, 
there is one spring more famous than the rest—a 
pearl in the ocean, more pellucid than its brethren 
—it is called the fountain of “Garaffo;” and 
daily its basins, steps, and conduits, are occupied 
with water carriers, as it is considered the purest 
and lightest liquid in the town. The good genius 
of Palermo, in the shape of an aged man, with 
two damsels at his feet, is seated in a niche in 
the opposite wall to the right, looking compla¬ 
cently and benignly on the element which im¬ 
parts health and vigour to his children. I may 
mention that one of the nuisances I find in the 
streets of the town is the quantity of noisy dirty 

curs, which obtrude themselves in every direction. 

«/ 


OF PALERMO. 


181 


I he present king of Naples, when he visited Pa¬ 
lermo four years ago, amongst other good acts, 
ordered poison to be laid for this refuse of the 
canine race, and all dogs to be destroyed that did 
not bear a passport, or were unclaimed by an 
owner. By such means four thousand perished 
in a few days, and men were employed at a daily 
stipend to carry their wretched carcases to the 
sea, in order that a pestilence might not ensue 
from their corruption. Since that time they have 
taken new root, and as “ bad herbs grow fast,” 
they have become again very plentiful, and much 
need exists for a fresh purgation, to ensure the 
comfort of the passenger and tranquillity to the 
city. In the church of the “ Fathers of the Con¬ 
gregation of the Oratory,” there is a very fine 
painting of the patron Saint, Ignatius, suffering 
martyrdom from wild beasts: there is also a pic¬ 
ture, attributed to Raphael, of the Virgin and 
Child, with the Baptist in adoration, but which is 
by a Florentine painter, a pupil of that master. In 
the private room of the Congregation are to be 
seen many pictures, and amongst them the por¬ 
trait of a peasant, attributed to Titian, but I think 
without reason, together with some of the minor 
works of Morealese. The finest gallery of 
paintings in Palermo may be said to belong to 
the Principe di Campo Franco, who is acting lord 
lieutenant of Sicily, or viceroy in the absence of 
the brother of the king of Naples. It is not very 


182 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


numerous, but contains many good things, and 
amongst the rest the following pleased me most, 
and I think would be most prized by connois¬ 
seurs:—a fine Domenichino landscape, full-sized, 
and a companion picture by Gaspar Poussin; 
a fine Spagnoletto, representing Tobit and the 
Fish (the saint is figured, contrary to custom, as 
an old man); a guitar player, by Valentin appa¬ 
rently—it is well coloured; a fine male portrait 
in black, by Sebastiano del Piombo, in his most 
finished manner; a female portrait by Titian, 
companion picture to the Sebastiano; a large 
picture by Morales the Spaniard, representing 
Christ at the cross, with two attendants, in the 
best style of the artist—it is the finest Morales I 
have seen, rich in colour, and fortunately un¬ 
washed ; a small portrait side-face by Rembrandt, 
of much merit; a Madonna, Saint Joseph, and 
Infant Jesus, by Fattorino, one of the best pupils 
of Raphael:—the figures are the size of life, the 
child lying in the position which I have seen 
often repeated in the works of Sebastiano and 
Venusti, while the mother is raising a veil from 
her offspring and contemplating him. There is 
a small female figure of the Virgin, said to be by 
Lionardo da Vinci, but which general opinion has 
decided to be bv Luini, and for which I have 
heard a large sum was offered by an English ama¬ 
teur, amounting, I have been told, to £4000, or 
eight thousand ounces of Sicilian money. Of the 


OF PALERMO. 


183 


Dutch and Flemish schools I observed little worth 
mention, save the Rembrandt which I have noted, 
and a small work representing a saint praying by 
candle-light, which appears like a production 
from the hand of Schalken. In the ante-room to 
the gallery I saw a Holy Family, which resembled 
an early Murillo. I was glad, as an admirer of 
the Spanish school, to find that the Morales main¬ 
tained a place equal, if not superior, to that of the 
great men by whom he was surrounded, both as 
regards colouring and design. This whole collec¬ 
tion was purchased from a relation of the prince, 
who was fortunate enough to obtain and collect 
the different subjects before Italy had been inun¬ 
dated by foreigners, and who ceded it to him 
whilst the change of government was going on 
under Napoleon, and all were glad, both during 
his time and at the return of the Neapolitan 
king, to realize what they could, even at a loss, 
and to escape. The prince was to allow his rela¬ 
tive, who was a single man, and in the state which 
Lord Bacon considers favourable to great under¬ 
takings, an annuity of £500 yearly for his life, 
which however fell within the second payment; 
and thus, as often happens, though successful in 
the collection of what assured him independence, 
he did not live to enjoy the fruit of his labours. 

The luxury of the Palermitans, for they are all 
fond of show, consists greatly in equipages; and 
those who visit the Marina, which is a drive on 


184 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


the bay, separated only by a terrace on which 
pedestrians pass their vacant hours, may see every 
evening the splendour of the Sicilian capital. 
There are elegants on horseback, carriages in 
great numbers and of every form and fashion, 
moving to and fro, and well-dressed spectators, 
with indeed no small share of beauty amongst 
the females; I must say, indeed, that Sicily 
can produce as many fine women as any country 
I have yet seen. They are comely, with good 
figures, and with a fascinating expression of coun¬ 
tenance. Sometimes their faces approach to the 
ancient Greek form, but the generality may be 
classed between the Spanish and the Italian. 
The complexion is olive in general, but I have 
seen here genuine red and white prevailing over 
the swarthier hues, which is scarcely ever the case 
in Spain, though sometimes in Italy; and there 
is a pliability in the muscles of the face, and a 
vivacity in the eye, which are truly Iberian, and 
do not correspond to the general sluggish regard 
and sleepy movements of the Italian. The classic 
regularity and length of the Greek face is not to 
me, I confess, so pleasing as this more gypsey- 
like countenance, and though more dignified cer¬ 
tainly and imposing, and admirable in a statue, 
does not convey to me the same agreeable sen¬ 
sations as the “ facies proterva” of the Sicilian 
witches. The Palermitans are very affable to 
strangers, and there is a general disposition to be 


OF PALERMO. 


185 


hospitable amongst them to all foreigners they 
meet; indeed, as in England, this desire to enter¬ 
tain keeps the majority poor. Like all nations 
under the same line, they are warm tempered, and 
much disposed to wrangle amongst themselves, and 
to go to law. The moral character of the lower 
orders is but very indifferent, and they are great 
thieves. It is usual to talk of Sicilian and Italian 
revenge, and the English, forgetting their own 
vindictive disposition, load these poor nations 
with the imputation of being implacable haters, 
and relentless pursuers of their revenge; but I con¬ 
ceive in this particular that my own countrymen 
are fully as cool and studied and unforgiving in 
their natures as these people whom they abuse; 
indeed, were it not that few regard them, many 
of our writers have so disfigured foreigners, that 
their readers would believe neither honour, gene¬ 
rosity, nor good-nature existed any where save in 
Great Britain; and even there we have daily evi¬ 
dence that the English look down upon and under¬ 
value the Scotch and Irish, claiming all prece¬ 
dence in qualities and consequence to themselves. 
I may however note that the distinguished painter 
Morealese, or Pietro JXovelli, (for he was called 
the Morealese from the town where he was born 
in the neighbourhood of Palermo,) fell a victim to 
revenge. A goldsmith had put some false metal 
to ornaments destined for a convent of nuns, 
which the painter, who was engaged by the com- 


i 


186 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


munity to superintend the embellishment of the 
convent, discovered, and caused the rogue to be pu¬ 
nished ; he however waited his opportunity, and 
taking advantage of a public disturbance, fired at 
Novelli, and wounded him in the arm. Amputation 
would have saved the artist’s life, but the injury 
being in the right arm, which was indispensable 
to him in his profession, he refused to consent to 
the operation; gangrene ensued, and the world 
was deprived of his talents. This great painter 
was born in the year 1608, and died in 1647, in 
his fortieth year. His performances are little 
known on the continent of Europe; at home he 
has been named the Raphael of Sicily, but I 
should be more inclined to class him as a Van¬ 
dyke of the Neapolitan school, founded as it may 
be said to have been by Spagnoletto, which master 
Novelli resembles in style, but surpasses in colour¬ 
ing. The population of Palermo may be esti¬ 
mated at 150,000 inhabitants. The patron saint 
is Santa Rosalia, whose remains are said to have 
been found in the mountain of San Pellegrino, 
which adjoins the town. The arms or escutcheon 
of the town are an eagle on a red field, holding 
in his claws a scroll, on which are inscribed the 
letters S. P. Q. P.—“ Senatus populusque Paler- 
mitanus.” The catacombs are an object of curiosi ty 
and interest. The natural impulse of our natures 
is to shrink from annihilation—nature startles at 
dissolution and corruption—such is the feeling 


OF PALERMO. 


187 


that binds to the world the existence of mankind. 
Different nations and different sects, however, 
vary in the belief they attach to our resuscitation. 
The Egyptians were anciently desirous of being 
preserved after death as entire as possible. The 
greatest misfortune that could befal a Greek was 
to want burial, or to perish in the sea, which pre¬ 
cluded interment: the Romans burned the corpses 
of their dead, and the Jews committed theirs to 
vaults and cemeteries, and preserved them as we 
do ours. The inhabitants of Palermo in parti¬ 
cular, and the Sicilians in general, are desirous of 
remaining above ground as long as they can, and 
the vaults of the church of the Cappucini are filled 
with male and female remains of all for whom their 
friends have been able to procure admission, which 
was however easily obtained with money. The re¬ 
mains of the departed are confined in a chamber 
until the flesh has dried to the bones, which pro¬ 
cess requires a period of six months for comple¬ 
tion. The skeleton is then dressed in the usual 
wearing apparel of the individual when alive, and 
placed in a niche of the wall, or an assigned 
situation in the long rows which occupy the sides 
of it. The males and females have different 
apartments allotted for their occupation, and the 
latter repose generally on beds or in coffins, 
whilst the males are placed erect. I saw also 
many trunks and boxes filled with dukes, gene¬ 
rals, and ecclesiastics, all packed up for their 


188 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


long journey. The friars who have the manage¬ 
ment of the vaults, and belong to the church, live 
from charity, and yet contrive to feed many poor, 
and do much good, for sometimes nearly a thou¬ 
sand mendicants are daily fed with soup. These 
holy men thus worthily perform two duties, one 
of taking care of the dead, and the other of pro¬ 
viding for the wants of the living. In this mo¬ 
nastic establishment of the Cappucini I saw no 
good pictures, but at the entrance to the ceme¬ 
tery I observed the two copper-plates of the holy 
and sinful death-beds, which are Italian subjects, 
and which I have seen repeated in many places 
in Christian countries. Of the theatres in Palermo, 
the small one, called the “ Carolina,” is but indif¬ 
ferent. The opera given was the “ Esule di 
Roma,” but the singers were all execrable; and 
soon, I hear, the house is to undergo a complete 
renovation. Whoever is curious to see the works 
of an early master of great merit, should go to the 
churches of Santa Cita, and that of the Parrochia 
di San Giacomo; he will find there altogether 
nine paintings by Vincenzo Romano, a pupil of 
Raphael, and which are certainly pleasing, and 
in some instances very fine, although the rank 
and general qualifications of their author are not 
equal to those of Julio Romano and Fattorino, or 
do not at least hold the same place in public opi¬ 
nion. The drawing observed in these paintings 
is sometimes faulty, yet it is in the classic style 


OF PALERMO. 


189 


of the art. The colouring approaches to that of 
Luis cle Vargas, who, however, in spite of the 
great reputation he enjoys in Spain, is, I think, 
excelled by the present subject of my narrative. 
The grand picture of the Cita is a Descent from 
the Cross, with a magnificent group of females 
below the figure of our Saviour, and the whole of 
this composition is said to have been taken from 
a design given by Raphael himself. At the bap- 
tistal or parochial church of San Giacomo is to be 
seen a large work by the same hand, which re¬ 
presents the flagellation performed by two execu¬ 
tioners. I must not omit to mention in passing, 
one of the best works of Morealese, which is to 
be seen in this church. It is an oil painting, 
eight feet wide by eighteen in height, and repre¬ 
sents the Virgin receiving sacrament from a bishop. 
She is attended by angels, and the distance or 
ground plan of the picture represents an architec¬ 
tural subject, very well painted. There is in this, 
as in almost all other paintings of Morealese, the 
mixed style of Spagnoletto and Vandyke. The 
head of the bishop is very fine and full of life, and 
that of the Madonna youthful and engaging. The 
mode of managing the light in this picture has 
been censured, and the composition does not at 
all agree with the transmitted legend, which is, 
that the virgin was confessed by a saint in the 
Foret de la Sainte Beaume, near to Marseilles 
in France. The first objection is however outbal- 


190 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


anced by the many beauties which the painting 
possesses, and the second by the eternal deviation 
of painters, not merely from appropriate scenery 
and costume in historical representation, but also 
from consistency in epoch. Zurbaran, in his best 
work, or at least in that which amateurs generally 
consider his best, the Saint Thomas at Seville, 
has been guilty of errors in time, costume, and 
characteristic grouping. At the principal hos¬ 
pital, which is situated in the neighbourhood of 
the “ Piazetta dei Tedeschi,’' exist the remains of 
a fresco by Novelli the Morealese, which in point 
of conception I think superior to the large paint¬ 
ing at the native place of the painter, which I 
shall mention hereafter. It was executed on his 
return from Rome, and exhibits Santa Rosalia 
conducting the females of Palermo from purgatory 
to the presence of the Almighty. The outline of 
the entire composition exists, but only a part 
of it in colour, the remainder having fallen from 
neglect, and more also would have fallen of the 
little which is left, had it been confided solely to 
the institution which owns it: a number of lovers 
of the arts subscribed money, without which 
nothing in this world can be done, and after some 
trouble induced the chiefs in office to have it 
restored, and to them we are indebted for what 
we have. In front of this painting under an 
opposite arcade is another fresco, which is very 
well preserved, and represents the figure of Death 


OF PALERMO. 


191 


on horseback travelling over all mankind; it is 
of the early time of the art, and is attributed 
to Vicenti, a German artist of the fourteenth cen¬ 
tury. He has pourtrayed the attack of the com¬ 
mon enemy with much happiness and force. 
Lute-players, huntsmen, loving couples, and phi¬ 
losophers are all represented in different attitudes 
receiving the fatal summons. The pale horse on 
which Death is seated is very strongly defined 
and imagined, and the figure of Death itself has 
much spirit. J have seen many early paintings of 
the German school, and the early state of the arts 
does not please me so much as that of the more 
recent and middle ages; yet in this painting I 
confess I looked with pleasure onand bee a me 
reconciled to the variety and dexterity of the 
composition, the quaintness of the countenances 
and the angular forms of the figures, and the 
dry colouring and abrupt effects of light which 
it contains. The painting of Morealese at the 
village of that name, which is considered his 
most famous work, exists in the convent of the 
Benedictines. It represents San Benedetto dis¬ 
tributing bread to the poor. The force of this 
picture is very great; the lights produce much 
effect, and are managed in the manner of Zur- 
baran, to whose style the picture approaches. It 
has many figures, and under the saint and his 
followers are supposed to be shown the abbot 
then reigning over the institution, with part of the 


192 


TOWN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 


municipal body of Palermo, for the insignia and 
emblems of the community are displayed. I will 
digress a little to give a few remarks on this 
picture, as it has a great name, and has been 
much praised. The opinions of men are however 
generally guided more by report than by expe¬ 
rience ; they follow each other in their judg¬ 
ment as mules in their pace, and acquiesce in a 
decision most frequently without personal inquiry. 
To deny that it has great merits would be unjust, 
but the defects which it seems to me to possess 
are, in the first place, that the perspective of the 
landscape, in relation to the groups of figures, is 
not well managed, for they are too large for their 
supposed distance from the point of view; and 
that the unity of composition of the whole suffers 
by the appearance which the landscape has in 
the distance, of being detached from the site 
where the figures are placed. The festival of the 
<f Corpus ” is celebrated at Palermo, but not with 
the same resplendent pomp as at Seville or Rome. 
This year it fell on the 18th of June, and I was 
present on the occasion—the procession of friars 
and their different orders was however broken 
and scanty, their march was unequal and disor¬ 
derly, and the ecclesiastics walked with their 
faces masked with the white linen of their robes, 
having two small eyelet-holes to enable them 
to see their way; but they had a most unpleasing 
and death-like appearance, each head resembling 


OF PALERMO. 


193 


a skull. What I lost in display of religious 
splendour was amply repaid me by a view of the 
beautiful faces in the different windows, and well- 
dressed spectators of both sexes in the balconies, 
and the favourable impression I had received of 
the Palermitan ladies was confirmed and aug¬ 
mented by what I saw of them to-day. The oc¬ 
cupations of their families in Europe, and the 
jealousy of their lords in the East, often hinder a 
town or a country from displaying the treasures 
of female perfection it may contain; on a day 
like the present all was alive in holiday raiment, 
and the happy spectator was admitted to a view 
of all that was “ rich and rare ” in animated 
creation. 




( 194 ) 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


PALERMO AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 

June 20 , 1835. 


The ancient cathedral of Palermo served, at the 
epoch of their occupation, as a mosque for the re¬ 
ligious rites of the Saracens, who have left in it 
some almost unintelligible inscriptions in Arabic, 
valuable only to the curious in that language. 
Professor Morso occupied himself in translating 
them from the Cufic to the modern Arabic tongue. 
After the expulsion of the Mahommedans, the 
Normans used the building for a church, and it 
rose to the dignity of a Christian place of wor¬ 
ship, and was endowed and enriched with many 
gifts by the Bishop Gualterio Offamilio, a rela¬ 
tive of Ruggieri, in the interval from 1160 to 
1194, during which period he governed this 
church. He destroyed, however, in his reli¬ 
gious zeal, much of the ancient architecture, but 
left one compartment, or chapel, if it may be so 
termed,'entire. Almost as much damage has 
been done to monuments of ancient art by Chris- 



PALERMO. 


195 


tian as by barbarian enthusiasm, and in the pre¬ 
sent instance many other adjoining churches and 
buildings were sacrificed, in order to gain ground 
for the completion of this cathedral. In its nave 
are sepulchres consecrated to the remains of An- 
fusus and Henricus, sons of Ruggieri, together 
with those of the two wives of the latter prince, 
and the founder Gualterio is interred also in the 
same neighbourhood. Thus perish and pass away 
all mortal things, and all worldly splendours ; the 
cold stone survives to mark the last abode of him 
who drew it from the quarry, and chiselled orna¬ 
ments and lacquered urns attest the departed re¬ 
nown of a conqueror or a moral sage, when his re¬ 
mains would be dissipated by a puff of wind, and 
would afford no distinctive evidence different from 
that of the meanest subject or most unlettered 
vulgar. The contemplation of a grave is the prac¬ 
tical lesson of religion ; it is that only which has the 
force to cause presumptuous man to shrink within 
himself; he sees there his journey’s end, and the 
poor vanity of all his high conceits. Few certain 
details of the history touching the cathedral of Pa¬ 
lermo exist, and none of them are such as to gratify 
the general reader. The present building contains 
some statues by Gagini, some basso-relievos by Vil- 
lareale, who is now living, and whom I consider a 
greater artist than Gagini, and two paintings by Mo- 
realese, neither of which are to be ranked amongst 
his most happy undertakings. One of them, 

o 2 


196 


PALERMO AND ITS 


which represents San Francesco di Paula in ado¬ 
ration, and which is hung to the wall, appears to 
me a very poor performance, without either force 
or good colouring. The other shows San Ignazio 
Loyola, the first Jesuit and founder of that order, 
in the act of communication with the Virgin, and 
is a far finer work, but the shadows are dark and 
the design hard, and even this, although the best 
of the two, did not strike me as very pleasing. 
There is one monument, which rises from the 
pavement of this church, entitled the “ Eternal 
Respect,” from the great name which adorns 
its tablets; under it repose the mortal remains 
of Frederic the Second of Sicily, at whose court 
literature was cultivated, learned men patron¬ 
ized, and the arts encouraged, during a period 
when the whole of the rest of Europe was im¬ 
mersed in ignorance and barbarism. The Italian 
of Dante was the language of the island at that 
period, and it has changed little even at the pre¬ 
sent time from its original frame : it may be said 
that the language of that great poet, as well as 
of Petrarch, was and is the dialect of the present 
day. The idiom of Florence has formed a stan¬ 
dard test of purity for later composers, but no 
modern writer has been able to throw into shade 
the sonnets to Laura, and the bold strictures on 
the princes and cardinals of the Popish faith. One 
writer, Geoffroy de Malaterra, observes, speaking 
of the cathedral church of Palermo, that if the 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


197 


Alhambra at Grenada, and the mosque of Cor¬ 
dova, did not exist, this would be reckoned the 
finest specimen of architectural splendour erected 
by the Moors in the whole of Europe: he does 
not however make any mention of the giralda or 
tower at Seville, which I consider a much finer 
Moorish relic than what is left either at Palermo 
or Cordova. To those who have seen the various 
horticultural establishments in England, France, 
Germany, and Holland, the botanical garden of 
this capital presents nothing new, save that where¬ 
as in the north artificial means are used for pro¬ 
ducing vegetation and bringing plants to maturity, 
in Sicily nature does every thing, and the climate 
supplies of itself what with us is gained from fire. 
There are however forcing-houses here also, and 
one that was made in England, being destined for 
Vienna, was presented to the institution which it 
now adorns, in 1799, by Maria Carolina of Austria. 
The collection of plants is very valuable. I saw 
two specimens of the cycas revoluta from India, 
which cost £500 sterling; and I am told that in 
the grounds there are eighteen thousand varieties 
of vegetable nature. The palms which I observed 
bear fruit, though it never attains its full perfec¬ 
tion, nor is at all equal to what is brought from 
the African coast; it is however eatable, and the 
servants of the garden consume it. At no great 
distance, to the south of the botanic garden, is 
the site of ^ome ancient Arab remains, called 


198 


PALERMO AND ITS 


“ Mar Dolce,” and it is here that antiquaries sup¬ 
pose the famous Lake of “ Albehira” to have ex¬ 
isted, which was a piece of water for recreation, 
filled with fish, and serving for the diversion of 
the Mahommedan chiefs of the city. Professor 
Morso, who writes on the subject, endeavours to 
fix the account of this lake, but the only autho¬ 
rity we have concerning it is the description given 
by a Jew, called Benjamin of Tudela in Navarre, 
who travelled in various parts of the world, more 
it seems for observing the synagogues of his coun¬ 
trymen, than from any love of general knowledge, 
and it has been suspected that he has given ac¬ 
counts of many places he never saw, and amongst 
them of this. He affirms, that in his time there 
were splendid pleasure vessels on this piece of 
water, used by the grandees of the country for 
sailing. All however is now dry, and even the 
site of the water uncertain. Near to this spot is 
another very memorable one in the annals of Si¬ 
cilian history; I mean the tragic theatre of the 
Sicilian Vespers. It rarely happens that an op¬ 
pressed nation at one blow exterminate their 
tyrants, and shake off the bonds of slavery, and 
throughout Europe it was considered a master¬ 
piece of policy and hardihood for the government 
to have expelled the Jesuits from Spain, although 
they were an unarmed body, and incapable of 
offering any resistance to open force: but in this 
instance the courage and enterprize of a single in- 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


199 


dividual, seconded by that of his immediate friends, 
was equal to the destruction of an entire army, in¬ 
flated by success and insolent from conquest. I 
will endeavour to make the reader acquainted with 
the origin of this conspiracy, and the results of its 
development. Louis the Ninth of France, a prince 
of great virtue, wisdom, and courage, who on 
occasion of the plunder of Jerusalem by the Per¬ 
sians, raised a crusade against the barbarians, and 
performed memorable acts of valour, although 
with no ultimate benefit to the cause of Christen¬ 
dom, (for which he gained the title of saint,) had a 
brother called Charles of Anjou, to whom Pope 
Urban the Fourth offered the kingdom of Sicily, 
in the middle of the thirteenth century. Man- 
fredi, who at that time reigned with authority of 
guardian to the infant king Corradino, son of 
Corrado, (who had wrested the island from the pon¬ 
tifical power, which had been desirous of its annex¬ 
ation to the dominions of the kings of England,) 
was hateful in the eyes of the supreme prelate, 
who consequently endeavoured to place Charles 
of Anjou on the throne. A similar offer had 
sometime previously been made to Louis in favour 
of himself and his children, which he had the 
prudence to refuse, and it is matter of surprise in 
this king’s history, that he should admit the propo¬ 
sition for his brother, and assist him in its adop¬ 
tion, when he had declined it for his own family. 
Charles of Anjou, therefore, who was gallant. 


200 


PALERMO AND ITS 


young and gay, appeared in arms in Italy. Man- 
fredi proceeded to oppose him, but was slain, and 
his army dispersed, at Beneventum. In this 
juncture Pope Urban died. It is said that Man- 
fredi was abandoned by the Neapolitan troops 
and the barons of Puglia during the combat, and 
that, lion-hearted as he was, he sacrificed his life 
when he saw all was lost, rather than survive the 
loss of a kingdom which he had successively de¬ 
fended against four popes, and might still have 
commanded, had he not been betrayed by his 
faithless troops. The “ periculosum opus alese,” 
as the game of war may be termed, varied to the 
disadvantage of its successful suitor; his fortune 
changed, as is generally the case when all hopes 
are concentrated on one event, and perhaps self- 
destruction, if he did not indeed fall by his own 
hand, was only anticipated by a glorious death 
on the battle plain. Charles of Anjou was re¬ 
cognized king of Naples before he arrived at the 
gates of the city. Beneventum was given up to 
plunder for eight days, during which time the 
inhabitants were exposed to the brutality, lust, 
and avarice of the soldiers. Philip of Montfort 
was sent into Sicily with an army, and occupied 
the island in the name of his master, without any 
resistance being made. Soon after his arrival, how¬ 
ever, new orders were issued throughout the coun¬ 
try, and the possessions of all nobles suspected of 
hostility to the French were divided amongst the 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


201 


adherents of the new king. Even at this day 
(for great antiquity, it seems, sanctifies every 
thing) are to be found many families in Sicily, 
who exact consideration from an admixture of 
French blood at this period. So much do we see 
vanity creep into the composition of our natures, 
and indulged even to the disfavour of our patriot¬ 
ism. If, according to the opinion of Lord Ches¬ 
terfield, we may question the existence of natural 
affection to its parents in a child, where there are 
no sentiments of gratitude for kind acts received, 
no less may it be a sceptical point how far the 
vaunted principle of patriotism is proof against in¬ 
terest, or independent of the power of vanity. It 
is no gracious thing to dive into the recesses of our 
natures, and to anatomize to the core our moral 
sentiments. I have however the pleasure of know¬ 
ing that it is as easy to imagine goodness in human 
acts as evil, and that the philosophy of Rochefou¬ 
cauld may be used to destroy his own unamiable 
positions, by employing the inverse mode of rea¬ 
soning to that which he adopts. As to patriotism, 
however, I fear we may say that what is commonly 
so called is little other than a habit,—a species 
of natural custom and impulse of the mind. 
The rough Englishman with his beer, and the 
lively Frenchman with his wine, thank the gods 
for all the goods they gave, without further in¬ 
quiring whether their nation deserves their admi¬ 
ration, or whether there are countries of which 


202 


PALERMO AND ITS 


the natives are wiser and better than their own. 
They sit down contented, and consequently pre¬ 
judiced, for their respective partialities do not 
proceed from experience but from habit. To re¬ 
turn to the history of the Sicilian Vespers :—the 
confiscations of property, added to vexations of 
every kind, roused the indignation of the islanders 
against their oppressors, and a noble of Palermo, 
named Giovanni Procida, who had been educated 
in the schools of jurisprudence and medicine, and 
was at the same time the physician and confidant 
of the deceased Manfredi, resolved on transferring 
the dominion of his native country to Peter the 
Third of Aragon, and liberating her from the 
French yoke. Corradino had been defeated in 
battle by Charles of Anjou, and had expiated the 
just attempt of regaining his patrimonial empire 
by an ignominous death upon the scaffold. The 
army he had raised, of five thousand men, was 
destroyed at Tagliacozzo, near Tivoli, to which 
place he had penetrated. The attempt of Pro¬ 
cida was perilous ; but whether it be that a 
nation resolved to be free from a hated domi¬ 
nion generally succeeds,—or whether a fate in 
empire is destined from above, which, as the poet 
Pindar tells us, no human power can alter,—or 
whether great energy in one man can bend others 
to his wishes, and so command futurity and regu¬ 
late events,—the project of Procida was crowned 
with success. He travelled to Spain, and commu- 



NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


203 


nicated his plans to Peter, thence proceeded to 
Constantinople and obtained money to buy arms 
for the Sicilians from the Greek emperor, who 
was himself threatened with invasion by Charles, 
and rejoiced at an opportunity of confining his 
adversary’s attention to home affairs. He then 
went to Rome, and his scheme was consecrated 
by the approbation of the supreme pontiff, already 
alienated by the tyrannical conduct of the French, 
and the little respect they paid to the holy see. 
He had countenance also from the Grand Master 
of Malta, his plot was matured, and a small occur¬ 
rence, like a spark set to powder, produced its 
development. Alaymo di Lentini, Palmerio Abate, 
and Gualterio di Caltagirone, friends of Procida, 
together with most of the Sicilian barons, were at 
Palermo; and being sure that in any meeting 
of the people for a festival or procession there 
would not be found wanting some excitement to 
angry feeling towards the French, Procida ma¬ 
naged that the whole of his partizans should meet 
on the 30th of March, in the year 1282, on the 
Tuesday after Easter, outside the gates of Pa¬ 
lermo, near the church of Santo Spirito, a place 
which the people of the town frequented on that 
day, and where patrols of French soldiers were 
stationed to maintain order. Amongst those as¬ 
sembled was a certain Palermitan nobleman named 
Roberto Mastrangelo, with Ninfa his wife, whose 


204 


PALERMO AND ITS 


beauty attracted the attention of a young French¬ 
man, in command of a body of the patrols. 
Drouet, for such was his name, under the pre¬ 
tence of seeing whether she carried arms, which 
the Sicilians sometimes did, but which was rigor¬ 
ously prohibited by the French laws then in 
force, audaciously passed his hand into her bosom. 
At this indecent outrage she fell fainting into the 
arms of her husband; a passenger, however, who 
was witness to what had passed, approaching, 
drew the Frenchman’s sword from the scabbard, 
and sheathed it in his body. Then rose the cry 
for vengeance; the long confined rage of the 
people burst beyond restraint, and each dagger 
was buried in the breast of a Gaul. Even the 
churches were not sacred to the fugitives; their 
shrines were stained with blood, and many of the 
supposed fruits of French love were transfixed in 
Sicilian wombs. The grand justiciary, Giovanni 
di San Remigio, found no safety in flight; he was 
pursued and poignarded at Vicari. The fever for 
slaughter pervaded the whole island ; in less than 
a month no living Frenchman trod the Sicilian soil. 
The garrison of Sperlinga, however, which was 
composed of that nation, though safe from assas¬ 
sination, were scarcely less happy in their fate; 
for being close besieged by the enemy, they 
perished from hunger, and famine effected on 
them what had been intended from the knife. 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


205 


The islanders apply to the natives of that town 
the Latin line— 


“ Quod Siculis placuit, solum Sperlinga negavit—” 


as they only did not join in the extermination of 
their enemies. After these great events, Procida 
procured aid from Peter of Aragon, and that 
prince presented himself in person to the Sici¬ 
lians. Charles in the first instance attempted a 
descent on Messina without success, and after¬ 
wards challenged Peter to single combat, for 
having accepted the proffered crown of the re¬ 
volted island. Peter assented to the invitation, 
and Bordeaux was fixed upon as the place at 
Avhich their respective titles w r ere to be deter¬ 
mined, and their manhood proved, by the sw r ord. 
Charles was punctual to his appointment, but a 
large army, with his sainted brother the king of 
France, accompanied him, and Peter feared trea¬ 
chery. Like a prudent man, he at the same 
time determined not to expose his person to 
an adversary able to use unfair advantages, and 
to save his honour. He appeared therefore, some¬ 
what later than the moment fixed, in the arena; 
Charles refused to return to the spot he had 
quitted, and this comedy, from which all ex¬ 
pected great events, went off with acrimonious 
epistles between the two monarchs, each of whom 
accused the other of cowardice. Peter gained a 



206 


PALERMO AND ITS 


kingdom without sealing its acquisition with his 
blood, and Charles retired with discontent, not to 
be soothed by the flattery of his courtiers. He 
attempted to regain by force what he had lost by 
bad policy, but all his endeavours were ineffec¬ 
tual, and he died in 1285, in the sixty-fifth year 
of his age, of a broken heart. It has been ob¬ 
served by our great moralist, that in the decline 
of life shame and grief are of short duration; but 
we have very many instances which attest that 
amongst mankind the fire of youthful passion 
is not extinguished by the snows of age, and that a 
daring and impetuous spirit will remain coeval 
with our animal organization. The holy writings 
express that grey hairs may be brought with sor¬ 
row to the grave, and often disappointment will 
extinguish a life which has resisted the importu¬ 
nities of accumulated years. Who can trace the 
connexion between our spiritual and animal con¬ 
struction?—by what magic power is it that a word 
will derange our physical organs, that an idea 
and an immaterial phenomenon will rend the 
brow and extinguish even sensibility, and that 
the exercise of our mental faculties influences 
even every bodily impulse of our frame?—Between 
the contentions of Charles and Peter justice is at 
a loss to decide in equity; certainly each nation, 
if strong enough, chooses its own ruler, and soon 
finds grounds in self-will for invalidating the 
claims of a stranger power, and posterity loses in 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


207 


the contemplation of heroic achievements and splen¬ 
did feats of arms, the cool consideration of justice 
or injustice in past events. Even the expulsion of 
Charles the Tenth from France, who was doubt¬ 
less the legitimate monarch of that empire, is 
hailed as a patriotic act by its promoters, from 
the indirect reason that his family unjustly occu¬ 
pied the throne, being placed there by the hands 
of the enemies of the nation over whom he go¬ 
verned. 

In the church of San Giorgio is to be seen a 
painting by Palma il Vecchio, of the Martyrdom 
of the Patron Saint. It is certainly a fine pic¬ 
ture, although the subject is not pleasing—blood 
from the lifeless trunk inundates the foreground 
of the scene. I have seen but little of Palma, and 
confess he is not one of my favourite painters. 
The colouring of those of his works which have 
fallen under my notice is obscure and muddy. 

The Royal University of Palermo was erected 
by Ferdinand the First of Naples, in the year 1806. 
A better form for the building than the one 
adopted was proposed by the architect Marvaglia, 
but the intrigues of his enemies prevented its 
adoption, to the injury of the public. The en¬ 
trance to the present establishment is small and 
confined. There is a large court, round which 
are placed the different lecture-rooms. On the 
ground-floor is deposited the collection of ancient 
statues and marbles, which is not very extensive, 


208 


PALERMO AND.ITS 


but contains some highly valuable specimens of 
antique art. The two most pleasing pieces of 
statuary are those of a Faun pouring wine into a 
cup, found at an ancient town called Oplenta, 
near to Portici, and of a young Roman consul, 
discovered amongst the remains at Tindari; of 
this latter the face is very handsome, and the 
flowing folds of the toga are inimitably executed. 
Both these statues are well preserved; the cup 
is the only part restored to the Faun, and of the 
two he is my favourite. Tindari stood on the 
mountain of the same name, about fifty miles from 
Messina, near the sea; the appellation of the 
place has been now corrupted to Tonnaro. It 
was founded by Dionysius the elder, and peopled 
with a body of Messenians exiled from the Pelo- 
ponesus. Verres, as Cicero mentions, took from 
it the famous statue of Mercury, which had been 
presented to the town, after the taking of Car¬ 
thage by Scipio, as a memorial of the munificence 
of Rome, and a testimony of the esteem that 
republic had for the fidelity of its inhabitants. A 
theatre and a gymnasium are still to be traced in 
ruins, and the former seems to have been built 
without the aid of cement. In succeeding ages 

o O 

this town made no conspicuous figure in history. 
Its remains were examined by Mr. Fagan, an Eng- 
lish consul in Sicily, and he obtained possession 
of many portions of Roman statuary of the later 
times, but scarcely any thing of remote antiquity. 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


209 


In the collection of Palermo, of which I write, 
are to be seen some of the metopes discovered by 
Messrs. Harris and Angel at Selinuntum. The 
number exhibited is five, but I believe ten were 
found. They consist of squares between four and 
five feet in size: two of them are nearly entire, 
and serve to make us acquainted with the arts in 
their infancy. One represents a figure, who 
faces the spectator, with two others, one on each 
side, suspended from a pole, having their bodies 
curbed up, and which the middle figure bears on 
his own shoulders, with a laughing countenance. 
I asked the history of the subject, and received 
the following explanation. There existed in an¬ 
tiquity an Hercules, called Melampiges, i. e. 
“ with black buttocks,” and the great man was 
much feared—quite a Paul Jones or Blucher in 
his day. Two youths meeting him, and not know¬ 
ing who he was, diverted themselves, like silly 
boys, at his expense, upon which he seized and 
bound them for punishment; but the boy behind, 
seeing the conqueror’s hinder part, said to the 
other, “ there is no joking here,—we have to do 
with black-buttocked Hercules.” He, hearing 
this conversation, laughed, and set them at liberty. 
The second metope represents Perseus cutting off 
the head of Medusa. Minerva is standing by, 
whilst the winged horse, Pegasus, springs from 
the falling blood. There is much spirit in the 
action of both these pieces of sculpture; they are 


p 


210 


PALERMO AND ITS 


in basso-relievo, and somewhat rude in execution, 
as may be naturally supposed, when we consider 
the remoteness of the age in which they were 
formed; but they are such as their makers left 
them, unrestored and entire. The mask of Me¬ 
dusa, in the latter of the two, is most ghastly, 
and reminds me much of the countenances of 
Indian monsters shown at the present time. It 
may not be impossible that the arts, even then, 
travelled from the glorious regions of the east, 
and that Egypt herself reflected to the Greeks 
and Phoenicians a light borrowed from the more 
remote countries of the modern Hindoos. The 
third, fourth, and fifth tablets are very imperfect. 
The third represents two horses with trappings, 
similar to those appearing on the vase which I 
have described in the Biscari collection at Ca¬ 
tania, and ecpially facing the spectator, and at¬ 
tached to a car, with two more detached for 
riding, but neither a charioteer nor horsemen 
appear. The fourth and fifth metopes represent a 
combat of the Amazons, who are victorious over 
two soldiers, but the entire upper part of the 
figures are wanting. Casts have been made of 
the whole for the museums of most European 
capitals. A judgment may be formed of the great 
size of the temple of Selinuntum, in which these 
objects stood, when it is considered that they 
formed only a very small part of the ornaments 
of the frieze, and stood between the triglyphs, as 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


211 


is usual in the Doric order of architecture. One 
of the rarities in the Museum is a sun-dial made 
of marble, with four faces, which was found by 
Mr. Fagan at Tindari, and he only discovered 
the purposes of its formation, and the rarity of the 
acquisition, after the presentation he had made 
of it to the Sicilian government. They value it 
most highly, and T do not recollect in the whole 
range of my observations to have seen a similar 
work. I observed here a colossal statue of Ju¬ 
piter from the temple of Catalfano, and two 
finely worked candalabras in stone, which seem 
embellished almost like those from the hands of 
workmen of the present day. The Jupiter has 
the peculiarity of a marble mask to a stone body, 
which demonstrates its sculpture to have been of 
an early date, before the workmanship of the 
former mineral had come into common use. It 
is also to be remarked that the date of the town 
of Selinuntum, which was seated amongst the 
mountains of Caltafano, is supposed to have been 
coeval with the days of Hercules, who is said to 
have slain its founder for the injury he committed 
on foreigners and those who visited his capital. 
According to Thucydides, it was one also of the 
three cities into which the Phoenicians retired 
when the Greek colonies invaded the island. It 
stood at the distance of twelve miles from the 
modern town of Palermo.—To continue with the 
collection of antiquities. A beautiful sarcophagus 

p 2 


212 


PALERMO AND ITS 


from Girgenti is quite entire, and is ornamented 
with a most delicately worked frieze. The king 
of Naples has contributed three ancient paintings 
found at Pompeii, which are well preserved and 
well drawn. One represents a female scolding a 
serving-man, who has been to market, and holds 
a basket in his hand, having probably returned 
with purchases: in the back-ground appears an 
attendant. The figure of what I take to be a 
woman has the dress and costume of that sex, 
though the face, considered alone, would indi¬ 
cate a male. Another shows two men walking, 
but I could not from what I saw discover any plot 
or story; they are placed in an erect posture, 
and the colours of the whole in this piece of paint¬ 
ing are very fresh, and the distribution of the 
drapery is skilfully managed. The third is a 
large plate representing a boar chase; the ani¬ 
mals are drawn with much spirit and truth to 
nature, but the colours have faded from age in 
many parts; the outline is all that is discernible, 
and though interesting as a relic of the Roman 
times, it does not afford pleasure to the modern 
spectator, and is unsatisfactory as a painting. 
Above stairs is the picture-gallery, which con¬ 
tains casts of most of the good statues at Naples, 
and two from the works of Canova, one of which 
is the dancing girl, done from a young “ Transte- 
verina,” or inhabitant of the nether side of the 
Tiber at Rome; the other is an Apollo, in which 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


213 


the Italian has imitated the Greek Belvedere, but 
I think unhappily. The dancing girl possesses 
what Canova could give and the subject re¬ 
quires, grace of form and movement; but 1 con¬ 
fess the style of that artist falls far short of the 
force and pathos exhibited in the ancient sculp¬ 
tures. Lord Byron, whose opinion ought to be 
some authority in matters regarding the fine arts, 
says, “ Italy and the world have but one Ca¬ 
nova ; ” yet I affirm, and I believe there are 
many who agree with me, that independently of 
the grace his favourite possesses, there is little to 
admire in his works. I have been more pleased 
with the productions of many sculptors than with 
those of Canova. Villareale of Palermo, now 
living, rises as high above his master in terseness 
and sentiment and expression, as the tall cypress 
of the Bosphorus above the acacias of the west. 
Canova may represent a Hebe, a Ganymede, a 
dying gladiator, or a Hercules; they will be all 
well executed, they will all please, but the same 
air of effeminacy will pervade the whole. The 
gladiator will seem to die, as the luxurious Ro¬ 
mans required, without uttering a groan. What 
is it that in the science of painting and design 
places and will place Michael Angelo eternally 
above Raphael ?—the energy and vigour of mind 
he displays in composition. So it is with the 
chisel; the statuary who indulges and succeeds 
in the grand and the forcible will always prevail 


214 


PALERMO AND ITS 


over the general exhibitor of placid and lan¬ 
guishing beauty. In an adjoining room I saw 
a very beautiful bronze received from Naples, 
representing Hercules slaying a stag. It stood 
most appropriately over a small fountain at Pom¬ 
peii, embellishing the spot which possessed it. 
The animal is supposed to be in the act of taking 
the water to avoid its pursuer, who seizes it by 
the horns from behind. 1 cannot say that the 
collection of paintings exhibited here pleased me 
much. There is a small head of our Saviour, 
coloured on paper, which is attributed to Cor¬ 
reggio, and a pleasing portrait by Holbein, as 
well as a good work by Brossino, of the Virgin 
in the Wilderness. I saw two large dark pictures 
of Morealese; they interested me so little that 
I did not note their composition. In the church 
of the Immaculata, close to that of Saint Francis, 
there is a Nativity by Caravaggio, and it is a very 
clear fine picture. Those who showed it me said 
it related to the life of Saint Lawrence. Cara¬ 
vaggio is certainly a great name, and he intro¬ 
duced into the arts a new mode of painting; but 
I confess I think his style leaves much to desire; 
for as soon as the surprise from the first burst of 
light is over, all effect is gone, and nothing re¬ 
mains on which the eye can rest with pleasure; 
every thing is made subservient to that one delu¬ 
sion, and he does not graduate and soften down 
his shadows in the mode of Rembrandt; his 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


215 


works, however, are valued from the originality 
they possess. One of the most pleasing 1 have 
seen was acquired by myself at Palermo, (for 
Sicily is rich in works of Caravaggio,) and repre¬ 
sents the Repose of Santa Agatha. 

I have not as yet touched upon the villas in 
the neighbourhood of this town, for they are so 
numerous, that every one, from a prince to a shop¬ 
keeper, has some rural retreat to which he be¬ 
takes himself, to forget if possible his cares, and 
to seek for repose. The cost of their erection, 
however, still weighs down the favourable balance 
of rental to many, and the most expensive life 
of an Italian or Sicilian is that of the " villeggia- 
tura: ” the “ dolce far niente,” the languor of 
idleness and luxury of inactivity, are worth little 
without some gratification, and some stimulant 
for the senses; and often in these retirements 
recourse is had to expensive sensual pleasures, to 
relieve the monotony and listlessness of ease and 
repletion. I will say something of their gardens. 
The dearest tribute we can pay to nature is her 
embellishment, and the costly garb of the mother 
goddess, when encumbered with ornament, pleases 
only during novelty; hence even in what affects 
our sight, a degree of discontent will reach the 
proprietor, after he has expended immense sums 
in alteration after alteration on pleasure-grounds, 
and experience may at last come to his aid, and 
tell him that true taste consists not in profusion 


216 


PALERMO AND ITS 


and waste, but in dressing the lair with modesty 
that the genius of the place should be consulted 
attentively, that the general aspect of grounds in 
their primitive state should be always considered, 
and that their natural beauties should be assisted 
with all care, but not altered so as to become foreign; 
that hills should, where they exist, be garnished, 
and not demolished or cut through;—that water 
should be expanded, not confined, and that a dry 
plain should be distributed in walks, not floated 
in a lake;—that variety of prospect should be 
sought and improved by additions, not by demo¬ 
lition, and that difficulties should very rarely be 
attempted in removing already existing objects. 
I have been tempted to these observations by the 
sight of the encumbered parterres, the obscure 
walks which lead to nothing, and the redundant 
load of trees and shrubs which I have observed 
in the grounds of my Palermitan friends. In a 
confined space, every thing in extended land¬ 
scape is aimed at, and generally without success. 
I confess I do not admire the formality of an 
ancient French garden; the square beds and the 
angular walks remind one more of a plan for a 
fortification than for a recreation, and I abhor 
straight lines of elm, of oak, and of yew; but I 
do not at the same time fall into a wish for the ex¬ 
treme of irregularity, for curling roads like figures 
on an Indian jar, where one terminates in another 
at every little distance; for labyrinths where, if 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


217 


you extend your arm a few inches, you catch 
your pursuer through a screen of privet; and for 
popping walks where, if you are for an instant 
inattentive, you tumble over an useless seat or an 
insignificant urn. I detest a chubby Cupid squirt¬ 
ing water into a basin of gold fish; but I admire 
a rivulet, however small it may be, that falls 
naturally from a spring, and is expanded amongst 
the plants for whose benefit it seems to flow. I 
may even say that strict attention to nature is 
what pleases, and will longest please, in all and 
every thing. To mount to the noblest work of 
God—man, or (as some say) woman—in either, 
does not a natural manner always please best ? 
What gives grace to an Indian girl carrying a 
water pitcher on her head, but her natural ease 
and unrestrained movements ? What pleases in 
the Spanish coquette ? her natural manner. What 
places the French in a higher scale of presenta¬ 
tion than the English ? their freedom in move¬ 
ment and natural address. What renders an 
English fop a disgusting creature ? his want of 
natural ease. When we highly praise any work of 
art, do we not say how true it is to nature ? 

The two villas of most consequence at Pa¬ 
lermo are those of the Prince Butera and the 
Duke of Serra di Falco. They are both situated 
at the village of Olivuzza, distant from the capital 
about half a league. I will describe the latter of 
the two first. You descend from the main body 


218 


PALERMO AND ITS 


of the palace, which has two projecting wings of 
building at each end, to which are trained roses 
and evergreen creepers of different species, on a 
gravel walk which winds round a platform planted 
with the periwinkle. The sight reposes on wind¬ 
ing walks, and thickets of aromatic shrubs, which 
grow luxuriantly in these climates, together with 
weeping willows. The different walks conduct 
you to diversified objects; to here a pheasantry, 
there a hermitage, a ruin, a fountain, or an arti¬ 
ficial shower of rain, with which you are unex¬ 
pectedly bathed. There is a labyrinth, with all 
its ingenious intricacies, and straight walks which 
terminate in a marble bust or sepulchral urn, 
hedged with gigantic rows of the lignum vitae. 
The cells of the hermitages contain holy inmates, 
with each his peculiar salutation; one, when you 
approach his domicile, springs to your embrace, 
and expands the gates of his hut; another salutes 
you with an oriental reverence, and a waving 
hand; a third shuts the door in your face on 
your appearance. Though the creatures are 
formed from wood, they have the natural mo¬ 
tions of man, and they even roll their eyes with a 
certain sanctified expression. The greatest ob¬ 
jection I found to the distribution and arrange¬ 
ments of the walks in this garden was, that they 
were not open to the air, but close and confined 
with trees, that impeded the circulation of the 
evening breeze, which is so great a luxury in 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


219 


these hot climates. The pheasantry, also, was 
shaded from the sun, and these birds, which 
delight in its exhilirating rays, pined and died 
from their inappropriate position, as was men¬ 
tioned to me by their guardian, unacquainted 
with the cause of their mortality, until I ex¬ 
plained to him the reason. To my objection of the 
closeness of the walks, the gardener replied that 
the duke delighted in shade, but he agreed with 
me in my opinion of its being detrimental to 
health and general enjoyment. On the whole, 
I was gratified with what I saw. The English 
style is beginning to be adopted in Sicilian land¬ 
scape gardening, and perhaps it is from us that 
the natives have borrowed the taste for confined 
and apparently sequestered walks; but when 
narrow, they are always bad ; should a shower of 
rain fall, you are drenched from the dripping of 
the trees in every alley. The duke is about to 
add to his other embellishments that of a magni¬ 
ficent range of glass, which is to extend from one 
of the sides of his main building or palace. 

I now pass to the description of the villa of 
Prince Butera, which is neglected in some degree, 
and inferior in beauty to the one I have already 
mentioned, though nearly of the same size. The 
collection of exotic plants is however very fine. 
The grounds were laid out by a German, sent 
from Vienna for that purpose, but he has not been 
successful in his endeavours to please. A pitiful 


220 


PALERMO AND ITS 


piece of water contains one solitary swan, which 
seems pining for a mate that died some months ago, 
very possibly of vexation at the confinement he suf¬ 
fered. A meadow parched to dust, and intended 
for deer, has become the portion of two Spanish 
goats, the former creatures having also taken their 
departure for the other world. I saw a meagre 
range of glass, empty of shrubs, and two Dutch 
pits, with damaged frames and empty bodies. 
There is however a conservatory, which I think 
would afford gratification to a botanist, in his in¬ 
spection of its different horticultural contents. 

I have, I believe, mentioned all that is striking in 
these two residences; an English park and an Eng¬ 
lish flower garden generally contain more pleas¬ 
ing objects than both these exhibitions united. 
Indeed, my countrymen justly bear away the palm 
in general adornment of their mansions and their 
estates. In the county where I live, every lady 
has her flower-beds ; there are plots of ground 
for each miss who can claim a mamma; the wor¬ 
thy squires turn every angle of their fields into a 
surprise; something new and ornamental is in¬ 
vented and executed for each inequality of ground* 
The dusty manufacturers of Manchester, Liver¬ 
pool, Bolton, Preston, Bury, and Wigan, must 
each cull a bunch of grapes from his own glass 
range, and the spirit of devotion to Flora per¬ 
vades every class. Sometimes, indeed, genii very 
different from the fairies of the green,haunt at 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


221 


last these abodes, and executers of law, with 
grim visages, display commissions of bankruptcy 
and writs of arrest against their prodigal own¬ 
ers, in places sacred to Pomona and to Zephyrus. 
I mention, however, the general usage in Lan¬ 
cashire ; if too much expense is indulged, those 
guilty of it meet their reward, but the coun¬ 
try is at all events embellished, and its face ren¬ 
dered lovely by such profusion. 

I return now to the capital of Sicily; and will 
give some account of the palace which the king 
of Naples occupied during the time that Murat 
was in possession of his kingdom. It is of very 
ancient date, having been built by Count Rug- 
gieri, one of the family of the dukes of Normandy, 
who invaded Sicily, as it is said, with only sixty 
men, by aid of whom he took Messina in the year 
1089, gained the permission of the pope to reign 
over the island which he had conquered, and died 
at Mileto in 1101. He was a successful soldier 
of fortune, and thus became a king; had he failed, 
his fame would have died with him, and his name 
would not now be blazoned at the head of a 
branch genealogy of the Bourbons of France. I 
was pleased with what I saw of the building; 
a small Arabic-fashioned room remains, in which 
the Greeks have also worked, for its ceiling is 
gilt with portraits of Christian saints, whilst the 
frieze and walls abound with Moorish carvings. 
Perhaps this is a remnant of what was found by 


222 


PALERMO AND ITS 


Ruggieri. The apartments destined for reception 
in this palace are the following:—an antecham¬ 
ber, decorated with portraits of the court ser¬ 
vants—an adjoining one, with beautiful tapestry 
hangings, describing the adventures of Don Quix¬ 
ote ; another room succeeds, similarly furnished, 
and then the levee room, which is about eighty 
English feet long by twenty-seven wide. Pa- 
tania, a living artist of Palermo, painted the ceil¬ 
ing of this room. The panels of the wainscot 
are of red silk damask, with blue borders in white 
gilt mouldings; all these rooms open into each 
other. The private apartments of the king are 
on the opposite side of the antechamber, in which 
are the portraits, and their distribution is as fol¬ 
lows. First comes a sitting room of small size— 
the furniture is green and gold, the walls are 
green, relieved with figures in fresco painting, 
which however are not well done; a room adjoin¬ 
ing, exactly similar, in blue; these lead to a 
rather larger one, fitted up in the Chinese fashion; 
then succeed a bed-chamber and dressing closet, 
with some English prints, and afterwards a bou¬ 
doir. On descending some steps, you arrive at a 
small antechamber, where is to be seen the ae- 

o 

nealogical table of the Neapolitan dynasty; after¬ 
wards you are introduced into a cabinet library, 
which appeared to me to consist principally of 
works by modern authors. I remarked an alma¬ 
nack in a fine gilt frame, which was calculated to 





NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


223 


last for sixty years. The library opens into a 
room for writing, and from thence you pass on a 
terrace, which is supported by the large gateway 
of the town, called Porta Nova, and in which are 
to be seen a small green-house, and two basins 
with fountain pipes, for fish. This terrace com¬ 
mands the town, and the view from it is very 
fine. At the end there is a pavilion containing 
three rooms; the largest is used for dining. 
These apartments are nearly at the top of the 
palace, and give more the idea of being suitable for 
the habitation of a private individual, than for that 
of majesty. The court of Naples was long con¬ 
fined to Palermo, and therefore its abode was 
handsomely decorated, but it seems that what 
pictures they possessed have been all removed, 
for I saw none in the different apartments; there 
are however a few English prints remaining. 
Amongst the rest, I observed the portrait of Mas¬ 
ter Lambton, engraved from the painting by the 
late Sir Thomas Lawrence, which was considered 
a master-piece of the artist. It is doubtless a 
delightful thing to be able to possess the true re¬ 
semblance of a lost friend or relation. While, 
however, amongst us the representation of man 
and animals is held both lawful and desirable, 
among the nations of the East it is judged 
improper to copy animated nature, as being a 
mockery of the power of the Creator, and a su- 


224 


PALERMO AND ITS 


pererogation of vanity in man to attempt it. In 
passing the palace of the Prince of Palagonia, 
my eyes opened on a broad brass plate, inscribed 
with the name of “ Mr. Tough.” The appella¬ 
tions of our countrymen are somewhat startling 
to those accustomed to the soft liquid numbers 
of Italian names, and when I have met in my 
travels caravans of John and Jenny Bulls, I have 
sometimes exclaimed with the poet— 

“ Is there then no earthly place, 

Where one can rest in dream Elysian, 

Without some cursed round English face 
Popping up near to spoil the vision.” 

Let me address a few words to my countrymen 
travellers. You come abroad to save money, to mix 
with foreigners, and to improve your manners,— 
as well as in some instances to avoid your debtors; 
—attend :—money may be saved more agreeably 
in England than on the continent, if people are 
not ashamed of economy; and those who are 
subject to such false shame do not deserve to be 
rich. When England is abandoned for France, 
you should call to mind what Casimir Delavigne, 
the best modern French poet, says concerning the 
English nation, and he echoes only the voice and 
spirit of all his fellow Frenchmen:— 

“ La France dans son sein ne les peut endurer, 

Et ne les recevroit que pour les devorer.” 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


225 


And again (on occasion of the death of Jeanne 
of Arc, and the invasion of the British)— 

“La France jamais ne perit toute entiere 

Que son dernier vengeur fut il dans la poussiere; 

Les femmes au besoin pourraient les en chasser.” 

Now then, ladies and gentlemen, go and spend 
your money and enrich a nation which hates and 
despises you ; you will find, moreover, almost all 
agreeable places of the continent as dear as your 
native land, and you will want many comforts, 
even if you live expensively there, which you 
might have at will in your own country. As for 
society, you are ridiculed in it: I have not yet 
visited a nation which does not amuse itself with 
the formal manners of the British;—as for im- 
proving your manners, that may be done if you 
come early, are extremely prudent, and get rid of 
your English prejudices; but many a family has 
to lament the exposure to temptations, which have 
perverted the minds and ruined the prospects of 
its members, who might have lived respectably 
from youth to age in their own country, by their 
not knowing how to choose between the levities of 
foreigners and their really estimable qualities. 
When you can eschew the bad, and seize the 
good,—for no human natures are perfect,—you 
will certainly improve; but if to the heaviness 
of an English disposition you add the frivolity 
of the foreign one, you become “ leaden Ze- 

Q 


226 


PALERMO AND ITS 


phyrs,” and little else than heterogeneous, in¬ 
consistent creatures, with heads of bulls and tails 
of serpents. The experiment is perilous.—As for 
the bands of ruined gamblers, of desperate adven¬ 
turers, who pollute by their contact the very 
steamers in which they cross the channel, live 
they in Paris, in Naples, or in Vienna, they will 
soon be known, speedily scouted, and invariably 
exposed; let them herd together, and let the 
nation be purified by their departure which has 
had the misery to give them birth. As for you, 
gentlemen, who travel for fashion, as long as you 
have guineas to spend in Europe, you will receive 
lip honour; when you are no longer serviceable 
to the people you visit, you will be thrown upon 
the dunghill. I am sorry to say that we are not 
popular abroad: the wars we entered into with 
France have caused the destruction of all the 
south of Europe; Germany is demoralized, Rus¬ 
sia is jealous and angry, Italy discontented, Sicily 
and Spain ruined, Holland indifferent, and France 
friendly only from interest: how then can we 
islanders be well viewed by these nations, when 
in addition to political discontent, we so frequently 
attract private animosities by our prejudices, our 
difference of habits to those we live amongst, 
and our general exclusiveness in sympathies, and 
predilection for whatsoever is English. In mak¬ 
ing these strong charges and remarks, I am how¬ 
ever free to admit that there are exceptions, and 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


227 


thatta travelled, well-educated, and well-disposed 
Englishman is an ornament and a benefit to the 
circle, wherever it be, in which he moves; of 
these I know, I am happy to say, many, and 
value and respect their acquaintance ; but “ odi 
profanum vulgus.” 

The observatory of Palermo, which is attached 
to the palace, is furnished with instruments by 
the English maker Ramsden, which are much 
valued, being the last he constructed. On the 
evacuation of the island, the British government 
was desirous of obtaining them, and offered a 
large sum for them to the Neapolitans, but with¬ 
out effect, and they were retained at a valua¬ 
tion by the latter. The baths of Termini are 
at a distance of four-and-twenty miles from Pa¬ 
lermo, and the whole of the road winds past 
the sea-shore, and is fit for carriages. At every 
step of the tortuous way, new beauties present 
themselves:—at about mid-distance the “ Capo 
di Gallo” stands boldly forth in the shape of an 
aspiring cone. I observed the mountains of Cefalu 
still tipped with snow on the ninth of July. 
The bathing establishment of Termini is under 
the direction of Signor Gargotta, who has ren¬ 
dered it a clean and commodious resort. The 
water is sulphureous, and particularly favourable 
for those affected with paralysis and rheumatic 
gout; when taken internally, it is slightly ape¬ 
rient. Its heat, on issuing from the soil, is 28 ° of 

q2 


228 


PALERMO AND ITS 


Reaumur. Signor Gargotta has a good collection 
of Sicilian agates and volcanic minerals, and a 
very bad one of paintings. As I returned, I was 
pleased with the distant view of Monte Pelle¬ 
grino, and on the whole, though somewhat an¬ 
noyed from heat, much enjoyed my excursion, 
more however from the beauties of nature than 
from the view of Termini itself, which is a dirty, 
precipitous, ill-built town, standing in an elevated 
position from the sea. Its population is nume¬ 
rous,—reaching, I am told, to twenty thousand 
souls in number. In passing on the road from 
Palermo to Termini, many tunny fisheries are to 
be seen, and the mode of taking these creatures 
is somewhat curious. The fishers place several 
compartments of net within a given space, with 
outlets from one to the other; the fish enter, and 
when they reach the centre one, called the cham¬ 
ber of death, and are enclosed in this labyrinth, 
the men, who are on the watch, strike them with a 
javelin, upon which they rise to the surface, and 
are mounted by their pursuers and killed. It is 
to be remarked, that the creatures being very 
large and powerful, danger might arise from a 
blow of their tails to the men and boats which 
are near, but this is anticipated by those who are 
astride, by the application of their hands to the 
sides of the heads of the tunnies, which imme¬ 
diately become immoveable and apparently stu- 
pified. I am gratified in being able to give an 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


229 


account of the festival of Santa Rosalia, the patron 
divinity of the town, or if not a divinity, at least 
the propitiatory saint in the holy calends of the 
Romish church for Palermo. The inhabitants of 
the city were in ancient times afflicted with the 
plague, which threatened to desolate it ; no 
human means were found equal to arrest the 
dreadful and exterminating malady, but the op¬ 
portunely discovered remains of the female saint 
effected by favour from above what had been 
deemed impossible by ordinary remedies on 
earth. Hence arose the celebration of feasts in 
honour of the favourite and health-dispensing 
idol. Santa Rosalia was a native of Sicily, and 
related to the ancient Norman kings of the isle: 
her birth-place was Palermo. She flourished in 
the time of the second King William, and was a 
friend of Queen Margaret, who during the mino¬ 
rity of her son William reigned in his stead. It 
seems, however, that her holiness preferred the 
retirement of a hermitage to the splendour of a 
court; and indeed it often happens that those 
familiar with the latter, descend to a choice of 
the former without regret. All is not gold to the 
mind that glitters to the eye; the sword of Da¬ 
mocles is suspended over our splendid banquets, 
and retirement from the world with but little is 
preferable to the embarrassment of great riches 
and power:— 


230 


PALERMO AND ITS 


“ Purse rivus aquae, sylvaque jugerum 
Paucorum, et segetis certa fides mesc, 

Fulgentem imperio fertilis Africae 
Fallit sorte beatior.” 

To be master of time, to read, to walk, to muse 
at will, to repose at an early hour, and watch the 
breaking of the rosy morn through the shades of 
night; to be unembarrassed by cares for others, 
and unsolicitous for each passing event; to enjoy 
tranquil slumbers, and taste with pleasure the 
unsophisticated viands provided by nature; to 
glide through life without counting days, marking 
them only by kind acts, and to welcome the sea¬ 
sons in some rural pursuit, as they revolve;— 
this is to live happy, this is to exist in good 
earnest; and when the hour-glass of time has 
run through the allotted space of existence, the 
virtuous and tranquil spirit will receive the re¬ 
lease of nature without repining, and exist again, 
and play round the spots it once loved, in the 
approving voice of those who are left behind. 
Perhaps in succeeding ages that pure fame will 
descend to posterity, and when time has stamped 
long past events with the marvellous, a beneficent 
genius will rise from the memory of the past, and 
be hailed by the unsuspicious vulgar at every 
village-feast with devotions and rejoicing. Santa 
Rosalia lived in a happy seclusion, unknown to 
and unnoticed by the great; her death caused no 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


231 


sensation, and it was only in the commencement 
of the seventeenth century that a supernatural 
and simultaneous impulse in a body of the clergy 
guided them to explore her long deserted and 
almost unknown grave. The remains of her 
mortal being were discovered, and conducted 
through the plague-infected town, upon which the 
malady ceased. No supernatural cause elicited 
the disease, though a supernatural agency is said 
to have extinguished it. The vehement haste of 
the Spanish viceroy, Philiberto of Savoy, to pos¬ 
sess a Turkey carpet proceeding from the infected 
East, without proper fumigation, spread the pes¬ 
tilence through Palermo. The following is a de¬ 
scription of the festivities held in honour of this 
beneficent lady. The first day is marked by the 
procession in state of a triumphal car, which is 
drawn down the Strada di Toledo at six o’clock 
in the afternoon, and at ten begin the fireworks, 
which are attached to a scaffolding in the Marina, 
and are certainly very fine. A large pavilion of 
fire is represented, innumerable rockets are dis¬ 
charged, and the whole terminates with a grand 
explosion, or bouquet, as is usual on similar dis¬ 
plays. The ornamental flames are of every colour; 
green, red, blue, and white, are faithfully shown. 
I have heard this exhibition of the pyrotechnic 
art represented as being finer than any in Europe, 
but I confess those of Paris pleased me as well; 
our English fireworks at Vauxhall are however de- 


232 


PALERMO AND ITS 


cidedly inferior to the Sicilian. I may notice 
here that the nights are damp and chilly even at 
this advanced season; and though the day had 
been very warm, a dew fell afterwards, quite 
sufficient to wet the card-tables placed on the 
terrace of the Princess Partanna, from whence I 
was a spectator. In this, in spite of the general 
fineness of the weather, I found a reasonable 
cause for the rheumatism I had felt subsequent to 
my arrival here, on the least exposure to night air: 

I imagine this humidity of the atmosphere proceeds 
in part from the vicinity of the sea, and in part 
from the vapours of the many streams which irri¬ 
gate the plain of Palermo. The town also is sur¬ 
rounded by mountains, which do not allow the 
wind to carry away the miasmata raised by the sun 
during the day, so that they have their full malig- ' 
nant force when the burning orb declines. On 
the second day of the festival there are races be¬ 
tween Sicilian horses in the Strada di Toledo; a 
course is made on each side with cords, and the 
street lined with spectators. The steeds are not 
mounted by jockies, as is the custom with us, but 
are discharged loose from the starting-place, with 
small spurs attached to cords, which dangle on 
their bodies, and are impelled to their utmost 
speed, first of all by cries, and then by the con¬ 
tinual spurring of the steel with which they are 
loaded. Their course is arrested at the goal by a 
curtain spread across the street. To those accus- 


NEIGHBOURHOOD* 


233 


tomed to the races of England, and to a fre¬ 
quenter of Newmarket, these contests will ap¬ 
pear childish and unamusing, but they are produc¬ 
tive of much mirth and interest to the Paler¬ 
mitans, who are unacquainted with better, and 
the animals are often fine creatures, and do honour 
to the soil on which they are bred. At about an 
hour after sunset, the triumphal car is drawn to 
the corner of the Piano della Marina, where it re¬ 
mains, while a general illumination of the town 
and the public walks closes the scene of festivity 
for the day. On the third day there is a repetition 
of races, with the variation of fireworks at night. 
On the fourth the races are continued, vespers are 
sung in the cathedral before the authorities, and 
there is an illumination, as usual, at dark. The 
fifth day is exclusively devoted to pious acts and 
to the ceremonies of religion, while the ashes of 
the saint are with great ceremony paraded through 
the town. Thus ends this festival, which is the 
most celebrated one in Sicily. In the church of 
the Benedettini Bianchi, is the copy of the Spa- 
simo di Silicia by Raphael, which shows Christ 
fainting under the cross; and it was in this church 
that grand picture, now to be seen in the Royal 
Gallery at Madrid, once stood. Philip the Se¬ 
cond of Spain, desirous to possess this noble work 
of art, offered the prior of the convent a bishopric 
if he would steal it and send it to Madrid:— 


234 


PALERMO AND ITS 


“ In castles and in courts ambition dwells, 

But not in castles and in courts alone 

The holy man was tempted to become a thief, 
and to run the risk of condemnation in the next 
world for promotion in this; he caused the pre¬ 
sent copy to be made, and when finished, placed 
it where the original stood, and shipped the other 
the same evening for Spain. In the morning the 
fraud was discovered, the authorities informed of 
the treason, and the monk exposed. Philip, 
powerful enough to break his word with impu¬ 
nity, and to refuse restitution, was hypocrite also 
to such a degree as to defraud the ecclesiastic by 
denying him the place promised as the wages of 
his iniquity, and to court the public opinion by 
saying he did so to inflict punishment upon the 
guilty wretch. This want of good faith, how¬ 
ever, will astonish none acquainted with the cha¬ 
racter of Philip; he was an ungrateful son, the 
murderer of his own child, a tyrannical despot, a 
deceitful master, and an hypocritical fanatic. It 
seems as if Satan had again appeared on earth in 
the human form of this monarch to debase and 
ruin the Spanish nation, and disgrace the Spanish 
name. I have been gratified by the Prince Ma- 
letto with a view of the Morealese he possesses; 
it is near fourteen feet high by nine broad, and is 
perhaps the finest painting of the master existing 
in any private collection, It represents the God- 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


235 


head in consultation with Christ, attended by a 
messenger Angel, with Cherubs in the distance, 
whilst the holy Virgin is seen seated in her cham¬ 
ber on earth. The scene is laid very boldly in 
the Heavens, where the whole is painted in an 
aerial and fine manner, whilst the earth below, 
the architecture of the house and the terrestrial 
appendages, are excellently pourtrayed. The 
shadows of the composition are not dark; indeed, 
it is one of the clear pictures of the master, and 
would be a truly valuable acquisition for any col¬ 
lection. There is a repetition of this picture at 
Naples, in the gallery of that school at the Mu¬ 
seum, but it is so inferior that I am induced to 
believe it to be a copy. Amongst the private col¬ 
lectors of the town of Palermo I may name the 
Conde di Vintamila; his gallery is however not a 
fine one, but is remarkable for an early work 
attributed to a painter called Tibaldi, to whom 
the great Michael Angelo was indebted for in¬ 
structions. The paintings of Prince Trabia are 
superior to those of the Conde; he has amongst 
them an early Raphael, which, although rather 
injured, is yet in a very desirable state; and a well- 
coloured and very interesting half-length portrait of 
a female holding a book, from the pencil of Titian. 
The Raphael represents a Madonna and child, 
with the figure of Saint Sebastian at the side, 
transfixed with two arrows. It came from Rome 
with other paintings inherited by the prince, and 


236 


PALERMO AND ITS 


was not known, till falling under the hands of 
Villareale the sculptor, who is also skilled in 
painting, to be cleaned, its real author was disco¬ 
vered, and its beauties brought to light. It ap¬ 
pears to have been painted at the time Raphael 
studied under Lionardo da Vinci at Florence; 
indeed the Saint Sebastian approaches to the 
style of Luini, who was also a pupil of Lionardo, 
and it might be taken for a production of the 
hand of that artist. There are many-other paint¬ 
ings of more or less merit in this gallery; but I 
have, I believe, named the two best. A portrait 
of the Fornarina by Raphael I have myself been 
fortunate enough to acquire since my residence 
here, to the shame of the amateurs, who would 
not purchase it on account of the price. It was 
obtained from the Ghigi Palace in the Piazza 
Colonna at Rome, being inadvertently exchanged 
by the family for other objects in the year 1810 , 
and has since been concealed in Italy and Pa¬ 
lermo. It represents the mistress of the great 
painter in her natural complexion, unadorned and 
unrefined by his imagination of ideal beauty; and 
from the fulness of the lower part of the body, (for 
the painting extends to the lap,) it would seem as 
if the subject was in the state that “ ladies wish to 
be who love their lords.” It is of Raphael’s middle 
period. The head-dress is the same as that of the 
Almasia of Raphael, existing in the Palazzo Bar- 
barini; the physiognomy of that of Barbarini, 


NE1G1I BO U Lt 1100D. 


237 


although taken from the same Fornarina, is en¬ 
nobled, he having formed her a nymph, half 
naked ; whereas this is the real portrait of the 
woman. The sleeves of this portrait are painted 
with the same changing tints as those used by 
Raphael for his own likeness, in the picture of 
Saint Luke in the academy at Rome. In the 
collection of the Prince of Pandalfino there is also 
a portrait by Raphael, of Monsignor Castiglione, 
the painter’s friend. In the design of this he has 
desired to follow the grandiose of Michael Angelo, 
and in the colouring of the head he has imitated 
Titian. The picture descends to the knees; the 
hands have either been washed, or are unfinished. 
The circumstances of the composition render it 
however a fine work of art. It is of the latest 
time of the author, and on canvas. When I first 
saw it, I thought it was by Sebastian del Piombo. 
I saw also here a recumbent Venus by Paul Ve¬ 
ronese, in imitation of Titian, but it has suffered 
much. These pictures were inherited by the son 
of the prince from the Dukes of Belmonti, into 
whose family the young man married. The 
prince himself has formed a collection, and he 
showed me a Holy Family which he called a 
Raphael, but which, to my judgment at least, 
looked like a Fra Bartolomeo. He told me an 
English amateur once offered him three or four 
thousand pounds for this picture, which I should 
consider dear at as many shillings; but so it is. 



238 


PALERMO AND ITS 


we poor English are always loaded with the credit 
of paying higher for our admiration than the rest 
of the world. The prince possesses, amongst 
other pictures, an “ Ecce Homo,” very like Mu¬ 
rillo, but much damaged; an interesting portrait 
of a canoness by Bellini, and a Martyrdom of 
Saint Sebastian by Gerrardo della Notte. He 
told me he was desirous to dispose of the whole 
collection. 

There is in the town of Palermo a house of 
industry, where the poor of both sexes work, and 
are supplied with food, but bachelors are not 
allowed to enter, and I was denied the gratifi¬ 
cation I should have experienced in witnessing 
the efforts of virtuous industry. 

I have as yet said little of the primary state of 
this town, and there is little to communicate in 
its history which can gratify the general reader. 
It remained in the hands of the Carthaginians to 
the end of the first Punic war, when it became a 
province of the Roman empire, which ruled it 
sometimes by a praetor, during the existence of the 
republic, and sometimes by a proconsul. It 
then was seized by the emperors of the East, 
who were expelled by the Saracens, and they in 
their turn by the Normans. In the year 1070 
Count Ruggieri, as he is called, fixed his resi¬ 
dence here, and named it the capital of the island. 
In the year 1130 the first Sicilian king was 
crowned in Palermo, and from that period the 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


239 


city has increased in size and beauty. It is now 
one of the finest capitals of the Italian empire, to 
which it is annexed, and while the eternal city, 
Rome, contains only one hundred thousand inha¬ 
bitants, Palermo has half as many more. It is 
four miles in circumference, and has fifteen gates, 
of which four are principal entrances. The latter 
are as follows :—Porta Nova, built in 1584 by the 
architect Gaspare Guercio, in the form of a tri¬ 
umphal arch, with an open gallery above; Porta 
Felici, at the other extremity, which faces Porta 
Nova, and is joined to it by a street of a mile in 
length, called II Cassaro, communicating with the 
Marina. Pietro Novelli, the Morealese, furnished 
the design of this gate. The third gate is Porta 
Macqueda, to the north of the Strada Nova, and 
this faces the Porta di San Antonnino, which is 
to the south on the other extremity, at the similar 
distance of a mile. The Strada Nova and the 
Cassaro are both well paved, and each nearly 
fifty feet in width. The public places or squares 
in Palermo are not very remarkable, but are 
seven in number:—the Piana della Marina, where 
the Hotel Page is situated, and where I now 
write; those of the “ Palazzo,” of the “ Duomo,” 
of “ Santa Teresa,” of “ Bologni,” of “ La Vigliana,” 
and of “ Santa Domenica.” In the Piazza or 
Piana della Yigliana exists the ancient senatorial 
palace, which served, when Sicily could boast a 
free and independent legislature, as its place of 



240 PALERMO AND JTS 

meeting; with a square, and fine fountain of one 
hundred and fifteen feet in circumference, orna¬ 
mented with urns, statues, and various pieces of 
architecture. It was the work of Camillo Camil- 
liani, a Florentine, and purchased by the Paler¬ 
mitan senate for twenty thousand dollars. The 
Flora is a public walk, the ground plan of which 
is square, and it has eight alleys, which run from 
the road, bounded by the wall, to a central point, 
where is a fountain and several pleasure houses, 
erected by the family of the princes of Palermo; 
there are besides eight other smaller fountains, in 
the compartments formed by the different divi¬ 
sions of the alleys, and there are also footpaths 
in these compartments, circled with borders of 
box; the walks being shaded by the junction of 
lemon, orange, and mulberry-trees. The whole 
forms an agreeable promenade, but it is on rather 
too small a scale for the size and extent of the 
city in which it is placed. It adjoins the bota¬ 
nical garden. 

Monte Pellegrino is distant from the town about 
two miles. It rises two thousand feet above the 
sea, and is nearly fourteen miles in circumference. 
The road to the summit is bad and precipitous, 
but may be performed on mules, or in a chair 
carried by men, who are engaged for that pur¬ 
pose, and when attained, it commands a view of 
the most westerly of the Ionian islands. Ulysses 
thus recounts his arrival amongst them:— 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


241 


c< 


A loXirjv o eg vfjrrov (ityiKofxeS ‘ evBa cT evatev 
A ioXog Itttotcu iiq , (piXog aS'a vcltohti Medial, 
ivl vpmp' 7racrav ce re fuv nepi reiyog 
yaXKEOv, appi)KTOv' Xicrm) c avacebpojiE 7 rtrpr). 
rov kcii ciotexa rrai^eg evi fieynpoig yeyacMTiv’ 

U pev $vyurepeg, cj’ vleeg rfiuovreg. 

evZ oye Svycirepcig 7 ropey vtacriv eivai cucoitclq. 
01 c aiei 7 rapa rrcirp't (jjtXu) cat fxrjripi KE^vij 
Icuvvvrcu' 7 rapa ce (rcfuv ovstarci fxvpia keitcll, 
Kvirrcrijev de te CujpLa tz e p i^evu^i^et a l avXrj 
rjfiara, vvicrag c avre 7rap’ cdcohjg aXo^ottriv 
eveova, tv te rcuzrjai cat ev rprjroTg XEyieaai. 
cat /.lev rtov iKojjEcr^a tzoXlv cat cu)jj.ara ca\a.” 


I may perhaps appear pedantic in quoting so 
much, but really the situation in which I find 
myself recalls to memory the passages of a work 
read at a time when I little thought I should 
ever see the places of which its illustrious 
author wrote; and I enjoy the curious rela¬ 
tion of them with greater zest, when I observe 
the total difference between what they are now 
and what is said of them by the bard of anti¬ 
quity. Like some ancient families, they have 
acquired from the past a splendour and a dignity 
which in altered circumstances does not altoge¬ 
ther forsake them; and their present meanness— 
for they are the solitary abodes of only a few 
fishermen—has not altogether dispersed the halo 
of glory which crowned their heads in former 
times, and the memory of which has descended 


242 


PALERMO AND ITS 


to us. Now the winds of iEolus are chained, 
yet we still call to mind the monarch who re¬ 
strained the angry tempest; and the bark which 
now glides by these green spots may felicitate 
itself from the recollection that no sojourn is 
required on its way, to propitiate a passage home 
from the dispensers of the elements. The ne¬ 
cessaries and even luxuries of life are cheap and 
easily procured at Palermo. The innkeepers of 
the capital are by no means so backward as 
those of the country towns in affording accom¬ 
modation to the traveller: their houses are ge¬ 
nerally good and well-furnished; an excellent 
dinner may be had for half a Spanish dollar. 
The Hotel de France, and Hotel Page, (kept by 
a Palermitan married to an English woman, from 
whence the name,) possess every comfort. I 
lodged in the latter. There are besides these 
many other respectable establishments. Living 
here is in other respects generally cheap. — I 
have been unable to gain any information of 
the manner in which Sicily contributes its por¬ 
tion of troops to the Neapolitan army. Through¬ 
out the island there is no conscription, and the 
wish of the government to force one caused the 
revolt of the inhabitants against the court of 
Naples in the year 1820. The garrisons in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the island are formed of Neapo¬ 
litan regiments, who are cordially detested by 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


243 


the inhabitants. The luxury and splendour which 
formerly reigned here have sensibly diminished; 
and the misery of the poor is extreme. A law 
for the abolition of entails was passed ten years ago. 
Estates already anticipated therefore came into 
the market, and there were few not so; property 
changed hands, whilst most eldest sons inherited 
nothing by the decease of their progenitors, and 
were left only with the debts they had contracted 
during a prodigal minority. Still, however, there 
are some wealthy houses; the Marina still dis¬ 
plays splendid equipages, and such is the love of 
expense inherent in the nation, that nobles will 
contract fresh incumbrances, and stare ultimate 
ruin in the face with indifference, provided they 
can minister to their love of show for the moment, 
and enjoy the passing pageant of the day. Both 
sexes have a rage for dress, and this rage is in¬ 
dulged when they are obliged to sacrifice their 
food to buy finery. If they can gain credit, the day 
of payment is postponed to the Greek calends. 

I have, I believe, noted almost all that is 
worth observation at Palermo : the curious tra¬ 
veller may perhaps be pleased with the Mosaic 
roofed church of Moreale, in the vicinity, and 
the Greek colonies which are settled about twelve 
or fifteen miles to the interior; but were I to 
note every thing in detail, I should form a cata¬ 
logue of things and places, rather than notes and 

r 2 


244 


PALERMO AND ITS 


observations on what are most remarkable. My 
days are numbered in this capital, and to-morrow, 
the 18th of July, I shall embark for Naples. I 
have, I believe, said exactly what I think of the 
Sicilians, and without partiality either one way 
or the other; although some of my earliest friends 
have been of that nation, and I confess I have 
a favourable feeling to their countrymen. The 
Sicilians are very courageous, hospitable, and 
kind; whether they may be justly accused of 
cruelty, hypocrisy, and bad faith, I am unable 
to say, for my commerce has always been with 
the better orders: I certainly have not expe¬ 
rienced such from those with whom I had com¬ 
munication. Saint Paul says, “ Calabri mali 
sunt, sed Siculi pessimi: ”—this is grown into 
a proverb, at least at Naples, for in that country 
they are glad of any excuse to vilify their poor 
subjects—one Sicilian, however, is worth five 
Neapolitans; if organized, the men would make 
excellent soldiers. 

The distance from Palermo to Naples is one 
hundred and eighty miles by sea, which occupies 
four-and-twenty hours in the passage, and twice 
a month steam-vessels, with good accommoda¬ 
tion, perform the voyage. The journey through 
Calabria by land abounds, I am told, with pic¬ 
turesque scenery, but offers no objects of anti¬ 
quity or interest, and occupies nine days from 


NEIGHBOURHOOD. 


245 


Messina. A steam-boat takes the traveller to 
Tropia on the Calabrian coast, from whence he 
performs the remainder of the way with a vettu- 
rino: the road is good. I subjoin some general 
remarks on Sicily. I linger in my adieu to that 
sunny isle, and say farewell to its emerald shores 
with regret. 




( 246 ) 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

_ 

GENERAL REMARKS ON SICILY.—July 5, 1835. 


“ Sicul^e nimmm ne crede puellse ” has become a 
proverb, but wherefore I am unable to determine. 
Inconstancy is the attribute of weak feminine 
nature; the restraints of Turkey, and the laws 
and reproaches of Europe, would fall innocuous 
on the sex, were they otherwise than varying in 
purpose; but that the Sicilians are more faithless 
than others I am not prepared to admit. The 
French ladies have been accused of great vola¬ 
tility;—but let the English look at home, and other 
nations to their own fire-sides, and perhaps they 
may allow that women are pretty much the same 
every where. Here, as in all other countries, 
(though a prejudice reigns against hot climates,) the 
higher orders are sometimes lax in conduct from 
indulgence, and the lower profligate from want of 
money and want of education; yet nothing has 
struck me since my arrival in the island that 
denotes generally immoral conduct in its inha¬ 
bitants. Many couples live happily and respect- 




REMARKS ON SICILY. 


247 


ably, surrounded by their children, and enjoying 
the sweets of mutual confidence. The whole of 
the Sicilians are very fond of gestures, and per¬ 
haps no nation understands so well the mode of 
communicating by signs as they; a wink of the 
eye will almost, to their comprehensive under¬ 
standing, express a sentence. I have heard it 
observed, that when once offended, a Sicilian is 
slow to forgive; perhaps this may be true—he 
feels acutely, and once wounded, time is required 
before the sore heals; revenge being no more than 
continued anger. An injurious word, or a slight 
affront, instantly raises the choler of a Palermitan 
to a degree which is wholly incomprehensible to 
the cold natives of the north. In the whole of 
my tour I have not seen a drunken man. The 
wines of the country are generally spirituous and 
strong; perhaps the best are from Catania and 
Syracuse, although the Marsala has had the ad¬ 
vantage of being most known to the foreign 
market. I confess, however, I prefer the produc¬ 
tions of Spain in this particular to those of Sicily, 
and some Muscatel show wine which I tasted at 
Syracuse did not strike me so good as what was 
offered me at Xeres in Spain. The mode of farming 
is like that of the Egyptians, the antiquated cus¬ 
tom of their forefathers. Florentine farmers have 
been introduced by the more enlightened land- 
owners, in order to cultivate estates, and improve, 
if they can, the scanty rent-rolls of the noble. 


248 


GENERAL REMARKS 


The horned cattle of the island are magnificent. The 
race-horses of Agrigentum in ancient times were 
exported to carry away the prizes of Greece; but 
now the breed is altogether neglected. The mules 
are very fine, and not inferior to what I have seen 
in Spain. The soil suits every species of grain, 
except oats. The palm and the sugar-cane are 
scanty in appearance, because their culture has 
been neglected. The silver-mines did not repay 
their proprietors for working. Sulphur offers, as 
may be supposed, a staple article of commerce in 
this volcanic country. The luxury and volup¬ 
tuousness of the ancient inhabitants of the island 
have entirely disappeared; the “ Siculse mensae” 
now exist only as descriptions in history, while 
the cookery is similar to that of Italy. Maccaroni 
is a favourite dish amongst all classes. A country 
so well supplied as this island is with meat, 
fruit, fish, and vegetables, must be naturally able 
to supply luxurious and ample food at a small 
cost; but the natives use these advantages as not 
abusing them; they are not excessive in their 
meals, and few would expend more than a few 
shillings for a repast, were their wealth even 
greater than it is. The traveller used to the 
prices of Europe will find himself served for a trifle 
in Sicily; that is, I mean, in the large towns. Of 
the arts and the artists I can only say that the 
former are much neglected; the pay of the pro¬ 
fessors being almost always in arrear, and in some 


ON SICILY. 


249 


cases there being chairs named which do not 
exist; as in the instance of Arabic at the univer¬ 
sity, of which language there is no master. As 
for the artists, Patania is the most popular modern 
one in colours, and Pietro Novelli, the Morealese, 
the only ancient one, I confess, who pleases me. 
In sculpture they have hadGagini, and now possess 
Villareale, a man, I may venture to say, worthy 
of a greater place in popular opinion than he 
holds. He was protected by Lord Bristol, and 
held the situation of statuary to Murat; but at 
the change of political events he was chained to 
Palermo, and compelled to languish in retirement 
for the benefit of his native country, on a pitiful 
pension irregularly paid. He has not yet been 
paid the stipulated price of the late king’s statue 
at Girgenti, which has been already seven years 
on its pedestal.—The climate of Sicily is similar 
to that of Spain, though not so hot; it is be¬ 
tween the thirty-sixth and the thirty-eighth de¬ 
grees of latitude. At the period of my visit to 
the island, the seasons were, I am told, reversed, 
for we had stormy, cold weather on the 22d 
of June, and I had often to complain during 
my stay of chill and damp evenings; this too 
at a period when the residents mostly cry out 
against the excessive heat. The gout, with which 
I am troubled, also haunted me perpetually, al¬ 
though the climate of Sicily is reckoned very 
favourable to that distressing complaint, and the 


250 


GENERAL REMARKS 


late prince of Paterno, the last of his illustrious 
line, survived till ninety under its constant at¬ 
tacks. With what I have seen here I have been 
highly gratified; its remembrance will continue 
with me for ever. Long abandoned to idleness, 
I had never had the resolution to attempt this jour¬ 
ney; those with whom I associated, more ignorant 
than myself, never pointed out its pleasures to me. 
Should I be able to stimulate others to the tour, I 
shall not consider my pen ill-exercised. They 
will gain certainly two things, health and infor¬ 
mation, and some perhaps a third, money, from 
economy exercised during the jaunt. They will 
meet no difficulties nor dangers. The lover of 
Grecian antiquities will find a large field for spe¬ 
culation, and the imagination can dwell with 
pleasure on as many spots in Sicily as in Greece 
itself. The country is more beautiful than the 
parent one, and though the cloudless splendour 
of a Grecian sunset has always been the theme 
of poets, the Sicilian sky does not yield in beauty 
to any. Thousands are the glorious scenes which 
it presents to the imagination of the painter and 
the poet. On those sea-shores, fragrant with 
wild thyme and roses, and bathed by the balmy 
warmth of the air, how often have I repeated the 
expression of Virgil— 

“ Carmina pastoris Siculi modulabor avena.” 

The reed is here still an instrument of melody, 


ON SICILY. 


251 


and the natural one of the country at the present 
day. The dances of the peasants are accom¬ 
panied with the primitive melody of a tambourine, 
and the pipe of Pan,—in that respect differing 
from the custom of Spain, whose inhabitants 
adopt a guitar, although the two nations strongly 
resemble each other in their general habits and 
their usages. In the science of music, the Sici¬ 
lians can boast that they possess Bellini, one of the 
first composers of the present day. I have even 
heard some assign him an equal rank with Rossini 
in point of excellence; be that as it may, the fame 
is by no means inconsiderable which he may claim 
from the comparison, even with that great man. 
Amongst those who have written in the Sicilian 
dialect, the poetMeli, compared by his countrymen 
to x4nacreon, may be considered the best. His 
admirers even say that he has surpassed the Gre¬ 
cian bard. His language, however, is not known 
or used out of the island, and no writer will be 
generally popular who is not understood by the 
many. In order to please, phrases and senti¬ 
ments must be familiar, and even amongst those 
who are skilled in the classic tongues, few can 
taste greater beauties in the original than in a 
translation. The pride of learned men, however, 
affirms the contrary, and all are willing to believe 
what is affirmed by the select, while the popular 
editions of ancient works, with collateral expla¬ 
nations, decide daily in contradiction to what 


252 


GENERAL REMARKS 


they would have believed. I confess, however, 
there is a pleasure in understanding the text, as 
well as the meaning, of such a poet as Homer 
or the Greek tragedians; and if our application 
of their words, or our estimation of their senti¬ 
ments, may be sometimes erroneous, as we figure 
it to ourselves in perusal, the delusion under which 
we labour is at least a pleasing one, and pre¬ 
ferable perhaps to the dry exactness of the gram¬ 
marian, who dwells on syllables, and counts with 
rigour the exact construction of every sentence in 
a translation. The sylvan bard of antiquity, Theo¬ 
critus, it is to be remembered, was a native of 
Sicily. I have not in my tour noted the plains of 
Enna, which are now lost and deserted. The 
Lake of Proserpine is a fetid marsh. The verdant 
bowers, the labyrinths of roses, and the enamelled 
meads on which Minerva, Diana, and Venus, 
according to the poets, wove the flowing garments 
of Jupiter, have all disappeared. Tradition alone 
points out where were the cave of Pluto, and the 
cradle of Ceres. Castrogiavanni, a modern town, 
with a population of twelve thousand inhabitants, 
occupies this former paradise, and its position is 
exactly in the centre of Sicily. These plains were 
once famous for beauty, but travellers will now 
seek it there in vain. 

I have touched little in my narrative on politics, 
and I consider that politics and religion are both 
subjects to be approached very tenderly Most 


ON SICILY. 


253 


adopt sentiments on each of these matters with 
enthusiasm, and the dispassionate inquirer often 
raises angry feelings, only by expressing himself on 
them with candour. I can however say, that what¬ 
ever may have been the talents or the intentions 
of Lord Castlereagh, the partition of Europe which 
he sanctioned at Vienna, has caused his memory 
to be execrated and his name detested throughout 
Europe. The inhabitants of the country on which 
I now write were desirous of independence, or in 
case of being made tributary, that they should be 
so to England. Instead of this, they have been 
handed over in subjection to a nation they detest, 
with the mockery of an independent constitution. 
“ De mortuis nil nisi bonum” is a motto which 
doubtless inculcates a sentiment generous, if not 
just: death should end censure. But in spite 
of the lamentable departure of the nobleman 
whom I have mentioned, it seems that the per¬ 
version of the opportunities he had for benefiting 
mankind have so enraged them, as to cause the 
yells of an exasperated English populace over his 
grave to be re-echoed on these pleasing shores, 
and to have attached a lasting obloquy to his 
character. The sufferers by the baneful effects 
of his policy have snatched his remembrance 
from oblivion, and destined it, as it appears, to 
undergo perpetual crucifixion and perpetual tor¬ 
ment. France, which was conquered and en¬ 
slaved by his means, has become again free—all 


254 


GENERAL REMARKS 


ranks are levelled, and no further revolution can 
well take place there. In England, however, the 
levelling genius is powerful as a young Hercules, 
and the policy of that ministry, guided by him, 
which was to keep down reform, has only served 
to dam up a destructive torrent, not to divert its 
course, so that its spirit now rises with giant force 
against all restraint, and will perhaps indulge in 
excesses which a more liberal course of govern¬ 
ment might have averted. Napoleon knew well 
how to restrain popular license: he fell a victim 
chiefly, perhaps, to his own ambition, but also was 
ruined by our government, at whose head Lord 
Castlereagh then was; and we were sufficiently 
impolitic to undertake the custody of the pri¬ 
soner of all Europe, and, as it seems, by petty 
vexations to the captive, to draw down upon our 
heads the odium of the French, and of a great 
part of Europe. This also was the work of the 
minister in question; guilty as Buonaparte may 
have been, we should not have forgotten what he 
once was ; we ought to have known that the 
swine may revel, if he please, on the remains of 
the dead lion, but that mercy and generosity are 
qualities superior to the triumphs of successful 
malice; they ennoble the victor more, and in 
the long run are also more politic. I have said 
little of the modes of society in Sicily, and of the 
forms of worship established by the religion of 
the country. There are certainly many customs 


ON SICILY. 


255 


practised different from those of the English, but 
from my long residence in Catholic countries, 
perhaps the strong points of discrepancy have 
escaped my attention. The manners of the inha¬ 
bitants, both of Sicily and the continent in ge¬ 
neral, are more bland than those of the British, 
and public amusements are easier to be found than 
with us: I may perhaps affirm with justice, that fo¬ 
reigners in general glide through life more agreeably 
than we do. The dinner-hour of the higher classes 

here is three o’clock; much more conducive to 

* 

health than that of our fashionable repast at seven 
or eight. The opera begins at Palermo at ten at 
night, but as there is no ballet, it finishes about 
twelve. The interior of the churches are not fur¬ 
nished with pews, and all comers share the church 
alike. Amongst the natives of the continent, the 
practices of religion are as sincere as our own, 
although less ostentatious. The modes of prayer 
are to be found in the different books—it is not 
my province to dwell upon them. 




( 256 ) 


CHAPTER XXV. 


NAPLES.—July 20, 1835. 


I arrived in this terrestrial paradise yesterday; 
and were it possible for nature to do more than 
she has done to render the approach to the town 
agreeable and enchanting, I should not require it. 
I must be understood, however, as speaking of 
' the Bay of Naples as a lovely sight, but I cannot 
call it a grand one. Vesuvius, with its burning 
cone, appears, at least to me, not as a mighty 
feature in the view ; I may even call it a secon¬ 
dary object—the neighbourhood of the different 
isles, and the circular form of the bay, are what 
produce the most effect. This prospect is reck¬ 
oned one of the finest within the reach of the 
traveller, and it certainly is so; it has moreover 
the advantage of being easily accessible. Art has 
in truth combined with nature to embellish these 
scenes, and all that man can wish for is to be 
obtained in the luxurious city which I am about 
to describe. I have heard it observed that the 
female sex at Naples is not eminent for beauty, 




NAPLES. 


257 


and perhaps the goddess Venus may not have 
been very bountiful to the higher orders; but the 
common people and middle classes have generally 
fine dark eyes, and hair flowing in luxuriant 
ringlets, with good teeth and fine forms. Such 
is the portraiture of a Neapolitan beauty. The 
roll of a female eye here flashes with an expres¬ 
sion of all the luxury of ancient Capua. This is 
the land of gesticulators, who are more comic, 
perhaps, in common discourse, than even the divi¬ 
nity himself, Punchinello, who is so much ad¬ 
mired amongst them. It is now fifteen years 
since I first set my foot on this soil: I recollect 
it as the seat of pleasures in my halcyon days of 
youth; and if, as Lord Byron says, time steals 

“ Fire from the mind, and vigour from the limb, 

And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim,” 

I must not repine at years having taken away 
what years always will, but endeavour to enjoy 
myself as well as I can in what are left. True 
philosophy consists in looking forward, not in 
looking back; in endeavouring to make expe¬ 
rience guide and command the future, not in em¬ 
bittering by remembrance what is gone by. The 
past we cannot recall, therefore should not in 
reason pine over the memory of mishaps or im¬ 
prudences, but throwing away the dark mantle of 
retrospection, view only what is pleasing and 
oyous in the picture of our lives. Most people 

s 


258 


NAPLES. 


say, ‘had I not done so, how much better it would 
have been for me;’ the wise man will, on the 
contrary, observe, ‘ thus will I never do again.’ 
With this mind, I purpose to describe objects as 
they now appear to me to be, and I shall add 
such observations upon Naples as time and cir¬ 
cumstances may have induced me to believe will 
be interesting. 

The harbour of Naples is not a very good road¬ 
stead, being in the winter time unsafe; its ap¬ 
proach is finest between Capri and Ischia, for 
although Vesuvius is a dwarf in dignity when 
compared to iEtna, the cloud of white smoke 
which rises from its summit is there seen to ad¬ 
vantage, while from iEtna no vapour is observed. 
The one may be called the kitchen of the Cyclops, 
where they are ever at work, whilst the other, 
iEtna, is their forge, and only used occasionally. 
Yet in spite of all, iEtna looks to me more like a 
volcano than Vesuvius. The climate of Naples is 
less warm than that of Sicily during the spring, 
winter, and autumn; but in August it is equally 
so, and oppressively hot. Most of the inhabit¬ 
ants then retreat to Castellamare, or to the coun¬ 
try. The fruits here are fine, and I saw many 
specimens of the palm-tree, but it bears badly. 

My first visit on my arrival was to the Museum, 
where are placed, in a gallery set apart for the 
purpose, the collection of paintings belonging to 
Prince Leopold; they occupy two rooms. This 


NAPLES. 


259 


assemblage of works of art is very fine, but those 
I admired most—and amongst thousands the ama¬ 
teur has favourites—were three :—one by Sal¬ 
vator Rosa, of Marius the Roman general, wounded 
—a Deposition from the Cross, by Guercino, and 
a Holy Family, with two friars in prayer, said to 
be by Perugino. I saw in the same room an 
artist copying an exquisite Sassoferrato, which 
represented a single figure of the Virgin, with her 
hands crossed in resignation. There are to be 
seen some fine landscapes by Poussin and Sal¬ 
vator Rosa, and amongst a very few of the Dutch 
school, a beautiful head by Mirevelt, which made 
me long for many more works of the same class. 
I noticed also the portrait of Andrea del Sarto, 
by himself. This artist sometimes copied Ra¬ 
phael, and the style of this portrait resembled the 
manner of that painter so much as to make me 
imagine at first that it was by him. The Museo 
Borbonico has occupied in its description many 
thousand pages of paper, and yet affords almost 
to eternity new matter for the press and the 
steel of the engraver. By the objects it contains, 
a new world, with new manners, new morals, and 
new costumes, are called into existence; the an¬ 
cients are raised from the cold abodes of the dead 
and the narrow tomb into warm day, the lapse of 
centuries is retraced, and those who, like myself, 
after an absence of fifteen years from a town or a 
country, find most friends departed, and all changed, 

s 2 


260 


NAPLES. 


will view almost with an idolatrous admiration 
those antiquities which again appear after the ruin 
of the cities they adorned, and the convulsions of 
the nations to whom they owe their origin. Their 
statues stand in original simplicity, like pilgrims 
who have told their tale,—like strangers, alone and 
solitary,—like wanderers amongst strangers from 
whom they crave protection, deserted and un¬ 
known. The present Museum was formerly called 
the Royal Academy. In 1799 Pompeo Schiante- 
relli extended and improved its plan. The upper 
story was finished, and the Farnese collection of 
marbles and antiques was withdrawn from Rome 
for its embellishment. The subsequent invasion 
of the French, and the revolutions of the empire, 
prevented the immediate completion of the pro¬ 
jected building, but on the ejection of the Muratic 
dynasty, and the reinstatement of the Bourbon 
branches in the sovereignty, it received its present 
name, and obtained its just consequence. In the 
first room below stairs which I visited are contained 
the frescos from Pompeii; they consist of paint¬ 
ings from animated nature, as well as landscapes, 
which formerly adorned the mansions of the lava- 
buried town. I saw depicted birds, beasts, flow¬ 
ers, and fruits of every sort, in particular mush¬ 
rooms, apricots, peaches, and grapes; vases of 
glass or crystal, of the present shape; and amongst 
other things a caricature of Seneca leading along 
Nero; the former shown as a grasshopper, and 


NAPLES. 


261 


the latter as a parrot. On a slab of white marble 
is imprinted an exquisite drawing of Theseus 
slaying the Minotaur, with Ariadne standing 
by; and the correctness and delicacy of the de¬ 
sign equals any thing I have seen of the same 
sort in the present day. I cannot however pass 
this encomium on most of the disinterred repre¬ 
sentations ; although free, they are generally weak 
and incorrect. But the progress of the art amongst 
the ancients must not be judged exclusively by 
such specimens; all that is shown is not to be 
supposed to have belonged to the highest efforts 
of art, and perhaps most that appear are rude 
productions of unskilled people, hastily daubed on 
the walls of the houses, (as every one was painted,) 
and serving no more for a criterion of what de¬ 
signers they could boast, than would an English 
alehouse portraiture with us. The ancient draw¬ 
ings, generally so faulty in proportions, are here 
amply vindicated by the representation to which 
I have alluded. I saw also a painting of ancient 
Puteoli, containing the delineation of the point 
of Caligula, his bridge, the Gastello di Boja, and 
the temple of Serapis. In the room opposite, to the 
left on the ground-floor, are contained the most 
recently received antiquities from Pompeii, in the 
class of mosaics, as well as the frescos of the 
temple of Isis. Those of the temple did not strike 
me particularly, though their habitation is the 
most perfect one remaining of the city; but the 


2G2 


NAPLES. 


mosaics from the Herculaneum theatre quite ra¬ 
vished me ; one represents a masquerade, and 
appears to be the work of Dioscorides, a Greek 
from Samos, whose name it bears, although I do 
not find him mentioned in the list of celebrated 
ancients; the subject is composed of three figures 
only, but their execution is very good, and the 
freshness and colour of the stones most beautiful. 
The other is from the room of the Faun at Pom¬ 
peii, and represents a young Cupid of the train of 
Bacchus, with fruit, and this mosaic is entitled to 
particular note and attention. In the same room 
of the Faun there is also a splendid mosaic of 
large size, representing every different species of 
fish. These are certainly fine works, and would 
be considered so in spite of their antiquity, were 
they offered for sale in the present day. It would 
appear that the Roman habitations were more 
remarkable for ornamental decoration than for 
abundance of internal furniture; the remains of 
seats are very scanty in proportion to those of 
pictures, though it may also be presumed that 
many were removed from the different towns 
during their conflagration, and also that many 
perished from the fire. In the division of the 
marbles, which occupy three large galleries and 
eight smaller ones, the eye rests with satisfaction 
on the Balbi family from Herculaneum, and the 
horses which bear the weight of two of the 
younger members are boldly and faithfully sculp- 


NAPLES. 


263 


tured : they are of Greek workmanship ;—but 
were I to note every thing with minute attention, 
months might be passed in these interesting 
chambers. I shall therefore only point out what 
objects I think will most attract every class of 
visitors. They are as follows. A Faun and Bac¬ 
chus, from the Farnese collection, — the elder 
Agrippina—the Caracalla—the monument of Ti¬ 
berius after his conquest of the fourteen provinces 
of Asia Minor—the cup of solid porphyry, the 
diameter of which is twelve feet—the Flora from 
the baths of Caracalla at Rome—the vase of tri¬ 
umph, sacred to Bacchus, from Mola di Gaeta— 
the giant Atlas bearing the world—the Aristides 
from Herculaneum. But what is this number 
amongst so many priceless treasures ? I saw 
here, and regarded with much attention, the 
Psyche attributed to Praxiteles, from Capua, and 
the Venus Callipiga, found in the “ Casa Aurea,” 
or golden house of Nero at Rome, also supposed 
to be by the same sculptor. The Psyche is un¬ 
finished, and unfortunately we have of it only the 
head and part of the body, so that the remnant 
appears crude, but it certainly has, in the contour 
and position of the head, a most beautiful appear¬ 
ance. Immediately on being seen, it attracts 
attention, and I have seen no marble bust that an 
amateur, I think, would more eagerly desire for 
the ornament of his cabinet than this one. The 
Venus Callipiga 1 was disappointed in, and a 



2G4 


NAPLES. 


great part of it is restored; the parts,, however, 
from which it takes its name, are entire, and pos¬ 
sess all the plumpness and rotundity desired. 
The marble has become somewhat yellow with 
time. One of the legs is miserably set on, and 
the head is half new. In the apartment of the 
Egyptian antiquities is to be seen a table from 
the temple of Isis at Pompeii, which M. Champol- 
lion has explained as relating to the rites of the 
religion of the goddess, and her statue is also to 
be seen, holding the key of the river Nile. Here 
are also the sepulchral tables of the judgment of 
Osiris, also the Jove of Serapis, who was the 
Egyptian Pluto, and two antique columns of Egyp¬ 
tian briccia, which is a species of stone formed by 
the deposition of different kinds of pebbles, which 
unite together and form an indurated mass. I 
saw a tiger’s head in bloody jasper, which is reck¬ 
oned a great rarity, and a genealogical sepulchre, 
or rather box, of painted wood, full of small 
wooden figures, and in which a fresh one was 
placed every time a member of the family died to 
whom it belonged. The collection of bronzes, as 
well as funeral urns, at this Museum, is unrivalled 
in quality, and unequalled in number, perhaps by 
all those of the world united. Of the ancient 
bronzes from Herculaneum 1 noted the follow r - 
ing:—the statue ol a Roman consul, the original 
of which is unknown; that of an infant Hercules, 
ol Augustus, of the dancing and recumbent Faun 


NAPLES. 


265 


intoxicated ; of Antinous, the impure favourite of 
the emperor Adrian; of two Discoboli or quoit- 
players ; of Apollo drawing the bow, which Ca- 
nova has imitated; of Nero on horseback, who in 
this representation seems a young man of six-and- 
twenty, with a pleasing expression of counte¬ 
nance, the features as yet unfaded from the ma¬ 
lignant vapours of excess. The head of the horse, 
the emblem of Naples amongst the Greeks, here 
exists in gigantic proportions, together with the 
key of an aqueduct. I saw also a very fine Mer¬ 
cury. Of the bronzes from Pompeii the most 
celebrated is perhaps a Diana, with coloured eyes, 
and it seems the ancients indulged in this nearer 
approach to the reality of nature, and made the 
eyes of their statues sometimes of clear metal, 
silver or glass. Of the pictures I will say some¬ 
thing before I proceed further with the antiqui¬ 
ties of the disinterred towns. I candidly confess 
I found the gallery poor, in comparison of what I 
had expected, in paintings. In the whole there are 
but few good specimens of the Dutch and Flemish 
schools, and even in the province of the Neapo¬ 
litan masters I only saw two fine Salvators, and 
these were inferior to those in the gallery of 
Prince Leopold. That there are here fine works of 
art must however be admitted, and I will name such 
as struck me most. Indeed, any of them would 
elevate and ennoble an inferior collection; but 
when we come to Italy to see pictures, we expect 


266 


NAPLES. 


an abundance, perhaps unreasonably, of the very 
best works of every different master, and we are 
dissatisfied if a fine specimen of every name is 
not immediately offered to our sight—many I 
have known go away grumbling, and declare that 
they have seen more paintings worth seeing in 
England than in Rome, Florence, and Naples. 
This, however, is prejudice and illiberality; we 
must always bow our stubborn necks to the supe¬ 
riority of the great masters, and the abundance of 
their performances over our own in this lovely 
country. On entering the grand gallery, I saw, 
by Correggio, two magnificent studies for the 
fresco paintings of the cupola in the cathedral of 
Parma, two gigantic sketches of Saint John the 
Baptist and the Evangelist, and two more works 
by the same master for fresco, one of Christ in the 
clouds crowning the Virgin, and another of the Vir¬ 
gin, with an Angel in attendance. Here are several 
more paintings of a smaller size attributed to Cor¬ 
reggio ; two however are certain and genuine pic¬ 
tures, one of the marriage of Saint Catherine, which 
is highly valued, and the other a Madonna in 
prayer, with a rabbit at her feet, which has been 
much washed and damaged. There are besides 
these a Virgin and Child, a “ Guazzo,” a Holy 
Family, a San Benedetto, and two sketches of the 
Deposition of our Saviour from the Cross—whe¬ 
ther these are really by Correggio, the learned 
in the art only can decide; they are claimed as 


NAPLES. 


2G7 


his, and appear as such in some respects, but 
have not the beauty of those works which I have 
previously enumerated. I saw a beautiful picture 
of a saint at her devotions, in the possession of 
Signor Amoroso, a painter and picture-dealer at 
Naples, which he assured me was by Correggio; 
but that master had many imitators, some indeed 
at Naples, and I was afraid it might be from their 
hands, and not from those of the genius of Parma. 
There are in the gallery eight paintings attributed 
to Raphael: two in his early manner, which are 
undoubted, and six in his more mature, of which the 
picture of Leo the Tenth, the reviver of literature 
and the arts, attended by the cardinals Louis of 
Rossi and Jules of Medicis, and the Holy Family, 
which has been so often copied, of the Virgin and 
old woman, I believe Santa Anna, Christ, and a Saint 
John, are copies; the former by Andrea del Sarto, 
of whom it is recorded that he afterwards mis¬ 
took this picture for his own. The original is in 
the private receiving-room of the pope at Rome. 
I do not recollect by whom the other is supposed 
to have been copied. Close by this is to be seen 
a magnificent Holy Family by Julio Romano, 
perhaps the best picture he ever painted; it is 
called “della gatta,” or “of the cat,” from the 
circumstance of that animal being introduced 
with great effect. It quite overwhelms its neigh¬ 
bour with force of colour and design, which, were 
the picture really by Raphael, it probably would 


268 


NAPLES. 


not do. Of Hannibal Caracci there are many 
good specimens; in one of them, which is a most 
exquisite work, we see the portraits of himself 
and of Michael Angelo di Caravaggio, on whose 
shoulders he has placed two apes, while he shows 
him offering fruit to a parrot, seated on the hand 
of a dwarf. It seems in this work he wished to 
satirize his rival as a copier of others, by making 
him the friend and the associate of imitative ani¬ 
mals. He has also covered the body of Cara¬ 
vaggio with white feathers. This is a remarkable 
and interesting picture, and I did not find the 
colouring of it so dull as is often experienced in 
Caracci’s pictures. It is as comic and as lively 
in appearance as what we see of Hogarth, to 
which painter’s treatment of the ludicrous I may 
compare this. The Deposition from the Cross, 
by the same master, which was brought from 
Rome, and has been highly praised, fell short of 
my expectations. The drawing and expression 
are certainly all that can be wished, but the 
colouring is obscure and leathery; it resembles 
what we see on China trays, being glassy and 
dead. Of Claude I saw the Egerian landscape, 
which however has suffered, and become dark in 
the distance. Although not in the warm manner 
of Claude, it is magnificently conceived, and finely 
painted. Number 154 in the catalogue is worth 
noting. It is a large work of Antonio Salaro, 
surnamed the “ Zingaro," and represents the Vir- 


NAPLES. 


269 


gin seated on the throne with the Child. It is 
full of figures, and the last portrait to the left is 
that of himself, the Virgin that of his wife. He 
was a blacksmith by profession, and gained his 
spouse only by abandoning the anvil for the 
pallet and the brush. Love, famous in all times 
for causing metamorphoses, in this instance added 
a fine painter to the Italian schools, and ennobled 
the calling of a dusty servant of Vulcan. A large 
picture is seen here of Fra Bartolomeo di San 
Marco, the master of Raphael in colouring. Of 
Titian there is not a great deal, save the famous 
Danae, with a Cupid of large proportions standing 
at her feet, which is in the reserved room, and a 
portrait of Philip the Second of Spain, which I 
did not like so well as the one of the same mo¬ 
narch I have seen at Madrid. The allegory of 
infant innocence, sheltering under a guardian 
angel to resist the temptations of the fiend, is, I 
think, the most beautiful picture in the gallery. 
It was painted for a Sicilian family, whose arms 
appear, by Domenichino, and purchased by the 
late king of Naples for twenty thousand piastres. 
It faces the spectator as he enters the gallery, 
being at the extreme end from the staircase door. 
The great author of this, as well as so many other 
sublime works, was denied the honours living 
which posterity have decreed him dead. He was 
called the “ hue,” or “ ox,” of the Caracci school, 
and Lanfranco pressed his presumption so far as 


270 


NAPLES. 


to refuse to work over outlines left by him on the 
cupola of the cathedral church of Naples. Time 
has however vindicated his abilities ; he is placed 
by moderns on the same rank of merit with Ra¬ 
phael, while Lanfranco classes as a second-rate 
painter, and even as such is not sought for nor 
admired. Of Michael Angelo di Caravaggio, the 
Judith is a copy; the Bacchus of Spagnoletto 
an original. In both the spectator is struck by 
the strong effect of light, and the two styles are 
not dissimilar. I have been fortunate enough at 
Palermo to meet with a Domenichino, which as a 
cabinet picture it would be difficult to match. 
It represents the repose of Venus, spied out by 
two Satyrs, while the goddess is surrounded by 
a variety of Cupids at every different employ¬ 
ment and sportive diversion; some are occupied 
with the toilet, some are bathing, others culling 
fruits from the trees. A beautifully painted land¬ 
scape is seen in the distance, and every action is 
chaste and pleasing in the different groups. There 
are in all more than forty figures, and I consider 
myself fortunate in having been able to procure a 
specimen of a master whose works are by no 
means common, and still less so when composed 
on fancy subjects. The size of the canvas is 
about four feet and a half long by two and a half 
wide. I now return to the antiquities of the an¬ 
cients. The two master-pieces of sculpture in 
the Museum are, as may be imagined when I 


NAPLES. 


271 


name them, the Farnese Hercules by Glycon the 
Greek, a massive hero resting on his club, and the 
group of the “ Toro,” or “ Bull,” at which Apol¬ 
lonius and Tauriskius worked jointly, the former 
of whom was one of the three creators of the re¬ 
nowned Laocoon at Rome. Both of these sub¬ 
jects are formed from one solid piece of marble, 
and both are eminently fine. The head of the 
Hercules appears rather diminutive for the size 
of the body, which is nearly of twice the natural 
dimensions. This statue was found in the baths 
of Caracalla at Rome, without legs. Michael 
Angelo, then living, would not hazard his reputa¬ 
tion by making new ones, but deputed Guglielmo 
dela Porta, one of his best pupils, to do so. The 
real limbs were subsequently found in the Villa 
Adriana at the same place, and presented to the 
king of Naples, by Prince Borghese. This statue 
is well preserved, whereas the group of the Toro, 
of which there are four figures besides the animal, 
together with some basso-relievo work, have been 
much damaged. In the collection of the rarities 
of later times, I was much gratified by the sight 
of three busts by Michael Angelo, representing 
Pope Paul the Third, who formed the Farnese 
collection, one of which however is unfinished ; 
as also of a cup and writing-desk by Benvenuto 
Cellini, the first of which is in agate, and the 
latter in silver, and which were personal property 
of the pontiff. The best collection of the works 


NAPLES. 


970 

of Cellini, the history of whose eccentric life is 
almost as varied as his inventions are singular, is 
to be found in Munich, where he was much em¬ 
ployed. He introduced the style which has been 
imitated by all future fancy-workers, and particu¬ 
larly by the silversmiths of Louis the Fourteenth 
of France. If they have not, in their torturing 
labyrinths of form, equalled the ingenious Ita¬ 
lian, they have at least executed pleasing ob¬ 
jects of furniture, and the dressing-tables and 
boudoirs of Europe are still fashioned from the 
ingenious designs which have descended from 
them to posterity. This taste, however, has de¬ 
clined within the last few years, and workmen 
no longer labour in the manner of Cellini; the 
change may be attributed partly to the great 
expense attending performances of that nature, 
which purchasers are unwilling to pay for mere 
ornaments, and partly because in the long run 
simplicity pleases most. The eye becomes fa¬ 
tigued with a superabundance of carving and 
chiselling, and longs at last to repose on plain 
surfaces. It is the same feeling (if 1 may be 
allowed to ascend from toyshops and trinkets to 
the altars of the divinities) that causes the simple 
majesty of the Doric in the Greek temples to be 
preferred to the gay Corinthian, the composite, or 
the Gothic, in the later periods of the architec¬ 
tural art amongst the ancients, and in our modern 
churches. I saw some good boxes, in the old 




NAPLES. 


273 


raised style of fruits and flowers, of Florentine 
stone, which have become scarce, and are valued 
by the curious. I have not seen any of those in 
Tuscany, but I was favoured with the sight of 
some belonging to Mr. Beckford, the author of 
Vathek, in Paris, and they were certainly supe¬ 
rior to what we have here. I am myself in pos¬ 
session of two, one purchased at Madrid, and one 
in this town, that are well executed. The collec¬ 
tion of Roman pottery and terra cotta articles are 
sufficient to supply a town. I was shown plates 
of earthenware, egg-cups, flat dishes for holding 
the blood of the victims at sacrifices, pots and 
pans, mortars with pestles of lava for bruising 
herbs, strainers for soup, wine cups, ornamented 
with the heads of animals at the bottom, (for the 
Romans passed their cups round till empty, and 
then rested them on the brim, as indeed we did 
in the good old times); earthen spouts for the 
gutters of houses, also varied in device, and of 
different shapes; chesnut-roasters, or dishes with 
apertures at the bottom to receive heat; anointing 
phials, from which a small tube emitted the liquid 
to the body after bathing; models for casting 
figures, and lamps of every size and form. There 
were jars or cages for fattening dormice, which 
creatures were, it seems, reckoned a delicate food 
amongst the Romans, however much the idea of 
such a banquet may dismay the ladies, and dis¬ 
gust the epicures, of Paris or London. Two bowls 

T 


274 


NAPLES. 


of pease and corn, blackened by heat, but still 
entire, have descended to us. In another room I 
saw a valuable bronze mask of Petrarch, taken 
from the face of the poet after death; but on in¬ 
quiry for the history of the model, I was told that 
the papers containing it perished or were lost 
during the revolution of 1799. My attention was 
also attracted by a cross, with curious carved ivory 
figures, forming an oratory, which belonged to 
Stanislaus the Pole, round which he collected his 
troops to prayer, and which formerly adorned his 
sepulchre at San Giovanni di Carbonari, where 
his ashes now lie. Of the ancient sepulchral 
urns, I can only say that they are so numerous 
that a volume would not suffice for their descrip¬ 
tion: those from Nola are considered the most 
valuable. Out of the multitude, the three follow¬ 
ing pleased me most: one sold to the government 
by Mr. Mill ingen, an English dealer in antiqui¬ 
ties, and connoisseur in coins, for the sum of three 
thousand piastres;—it represents Hercules slay¬ 
ing the Centaur, and Dejanira looking on, toge¬ 
ther with another figure, apparently a priest; 
from Nola. The next is a procession in honour 
of Bacchus, and the third, which I admire most 
of all, the representation of events at the taking 
of Troy. On the flesh of the slaughtered Cen¬ 
taur are to be seen streams of blood, and I con¬ 
fess a good painting could not better represent 
the subject than this enamel. 


NAPLES. 


275 


1 obtained two favourable specimens of the 
Greek urns of Agrigentum from Signor Politi dur¬ 
ing my stay at Girgenti, and he reckoned them 
amongst the best that had fall enunder his notice ; 
they are diminutive in size and composition to what 
are seen here, but not inferior in quality; they 
have also the merit of never having been broken, 
whereas half of the ancient urns in this Museum 
have been repaired; they are in the first instance 
dug out in pieces, and then put into the hands of 
a workman, who joins them together, and after¬ 
wards glazes them so well as to defy the most 
minute scrutiny. The only test is nitric or mu¬ 
riatic acid, which will eat away the superficies, 
and so show the crevices. Restorers are equally 
skilful, and charge as high for repairing these 
urns, as their brethren of the profession do for 
pictures. It may be noted that the Sicilian Greek 
vases have generally a red ground with black 
figures, whereas those of Nola have invariably a 
black ground with red figures. The price of all 
these articles, however, has fallen considerably of 
late, and more especially since the excavations 
made by Prince Borghese at his villa near Rome, 
the subterranea of which abound with objects of the 
same class, not yielding in excellence of workman¬ 
ship or beauty of form to any others, either from 
Sicily or Nola. The armour, the household ap¬ 
pendages, and the surgical instruments, found 
both at Pompeii and Herculaneum, are very in- 


27G 


NAPLES. 


teresting, and differ little from those used in the 
present day; I particularly observed this in the 
instruments serving for the obstetric profession. 
We are dragged into the world now as we for¬ 
merly were; time has not changed our natures 
nor our necessities, and the part we have played 
and play is, to issue into life painfully, to live with 
anxiety, and to depart with fear. I saw no Ro¬ 
man bed capable of holding two persons; they 
are very narrow and solid; what I saw were made 
of bronze. There is some Grecian armour from 
Psestum, which, though worn by time, is still 
intelligible in form. The appearance of the 
modern imitations is so near that of the original, 
that any theatre or any armourer in Europe could 
supply a complete suit for Achilles, were he to 
return again to day; perhaps not quite so per¬ 
fectly as the god Vulcan, but quite sufficiently so 
to equip the hero for battle, and enable him to 
brave Hector and the Trojans. The articles of 
glass found in the two ancient cities present 
novel forms, and are of various colours, green, 
white, and a very beautiful blue; but I saw none 
of purple; the fact also which Pliny asserts, and 
which has been doubted, is determined in his 
favour, namely, that the Romans used glass to 
their windows, of which several panes are to 
be seen in this Museum; thicker indeed than in 
that of modern use, but in quality and size the 
same. The ancients had a fanciful and elegant 


NAPLES. 


277 


taste for their vessels; all we have might have 
been borrowed from them; many of their glass 
cups might be imagined to have been fused in 
the present day. Their gold ornaments appear 
mostly to have been laboured with the hammer. 
The spiral form of the serpent, for armlets and 
bracelets, was popular with them, but they em¬ 
ployed little chiselled work. They used pen¬ 
dants for the ears, rings of gold and silver, and 
bracelets, with collars of all metals. The collec¬ 
tion of papyri is more worth seeing from the pro¬ 
cess of detaching the folds, than from the mate¬ 
rials themselves, which resemble dry hard rolls of 
tobacco. The different layers are unfolded by 
applying gum and gold-beater’s skin to the cin¬ 
ders, which communicate with a wheel. The 
width of each line of manuscript is not more than 
two or three inches, and five persons superintend 
the operation. The lines are printed on paper as 
they occur in the original, and what has perished 
in the process of opening is supplied by the divi¬ 
nation of some Greek professor, and distinguished 
by red letters. Some of the cinders are wholly 
unmanageable, and what has as yet come to light 
are not the works of any very eminent man. The 
library of the Museum contains more than two hun¬ 
dred thousand volumes of printed books, amongst 
which are many of the fifteenth century. They 
show to strangers the manuscripts of Thomas Aqui¬ 
nas and Tasso. There are studies for consultation 


278 


NAPLES. 


of the various authors under the weight of whose 
lucubrations the shelves groan, and every facility 
is given to the researches of the learned. The 
principal saloon of this vast repository is two 
hundred feet in length by more than sixty in 
height, forming a striking contrast to the confined 
and narrow appearance of our Bodleian receptacle 
at Oxford, where a dim light only glimmers 
between the obscure buttresses. 

The church of the princes of San Severo con¬ 
tains three monuments, for which the government 
is said to have offered thirty thousand dollars, 
which were not considered an adequate price by 
the family to whom they belong; and they are 
really curious from the extraordinary effect pro¬ 
duced by their drapery and accessories. The 
first represents the mother of Don Raimonde, one 
of the princes, under the shape of a female figure 
of Modesty, covered with a veil of marble, so 
managed as to show all the muscles of the body 
underneath. The second is that of the father of 
the same prince, under the allegory of a man de¬ 
livering himself from the snares of vice by aid of 
a good genius. The snares of vice are represented 
by cords, which encompass the body, all formed 
from the same piece of marble, but touching the 
figure in very few places. The third is a dead 
Christ, covered with drapery, supposed to be 
damp with the dew of death; and perhaps no 
illusion can be more forcibly expressed than what 


NAPLES. 


279 


is seen in this figure. The tranquillity of eternal 
repose, the relaxation of inanition, and almost the 
incipient dissolution of decay, are presented to 
the eye; indeed the contemplation of it, in the 
solemn abode of death, gives a sickening sensation 
to the frame, and I was glad to escape into the 
open air and the sunshine, to avoid the effect of 
the painful representation. Corradini was the 
inventor of this style amongst the moderns, and 
wrought here, as also did Queirolo; the former 
was a Venetian. The Greeks did not often labour 
to give the effect of muscular action through gar¬ 
ments; but it is exhibited in the Esculapius of 
Syracuse, and Canova amongst the moderns was 
generally successful when he attempted it. Whe¬ 
ther it be a high effort of the art I am not pre¬ 
pared to say, understanding as I do but little of 
sculptural power. The cathedral church of Na¬ 
ples, the patron saint of which is Januarius, 
stands on the site of two temples formerly dedi¬ 
cated to Apollo and Neptune, and is the largest 
sanctuary in the town. Its treasures are now 
dispersed, but it can still boast the chapel of San 
Gennaro, in which are four paintings and some 
frescos by Domenichino. The interior decorations 
of the cupola are by Lanfranco. The following is 
the account I am able to give of them. The first 
picture shows the tomb of the saint, to which are 
seen repairing the blind and the lame, in order 
to be cured of their infirmities; another repre- 


280 


NAPLES. 


sents the saint on his knees, begging for martyr¬ 
dom, whilst the heads of his fellow-sufferers are 
strewed on the ground beside him : the third is a 
miracle of the restoration to life of a corpse, on 
passing the tomb of the holy man ; and the fourth 
the application of the holy oil of his lamp to 
restore the deformed and crippled. Of the frescos, 
the one over the door, the “ Capella del Tesoro,” 
has allusion to the plague of 1656. The three 
within the presbitero or railing of the communion¬ 
table, show San Gennaro before Timotheus, whom 
he restores to sight, and from whom he suffers 
death in return; his exposure to lions, who in¬ 
stead of devouring him, lick his feet; and his 
torture by being suspended from a tree, to which 
he is attached by cords under the arms. In the 
Sacristia is the sketch of Domenichino, wherein 
San Gennaro is represented casting out devils, 
and this remnant is worthy of notice, from the 
circumstance that it was the last of his works, 
and during his labour upon it the artist was poi¬ 
soned. In speaking of these paintings, it may be 
sufficient to say that they are by Domenichino, 
which is saying for them quite enough to those 
who are his admirers. The jealousy of Spagno- 
letto and his brother painters, which frightened 
away Guido from Naples, left for Domenichino 
the work which cost him his life; and by these 
untoward events, the flight of Guido, and the 
death of Domenichino, the world has been de- 


NAPLES. 


281 


prived in this instance of what it is now vain to 
look for. 

The antiquarian will see, in the adjoining 
church of Santa Restituta, the same columns sup¬ 
porting the Christian place of worship as served 
for the heathen temple of Apollo. The paintings 
I have enumerated of Domenichino are all on 
copper, silver coated; they have his full power of 
colouring, whilst the frescos are paler. The one 
which represents the decapitation of the saint 
has been injured by the carelessness of some 
workmen, in erecting and taking down a scaffold¬ 
ing which held musicians during the time of one 
of the festivals. In the cathedral, amongst the 
many pictures it contains, is a very fine work by 
Spagnoletto, who, to be prized and estimated, 
must be seen in his large compositions, and he 
then becomes really grand, meriting the fame he 
enjoys in Italy, but which is denied him in Eng¬ 
land and France, owing to the judges of those 
countries not seeing him to advantage. It is a 
subject painted on a copper-plate with silvered 
surface, and representing the exit of San Gen- 
naro unhurt from the flames of a furnace, to 
which he was condemned by his persecutors. The 
violence of the fiery flames repulse the by-standers. 
The picture contains eleven principal figures, be¬ 
sides angels, and is clear, transparent, and well- 
conceived. The sky is cloudless, and as blue 
and pellucid as if it had been imagined by Guido. 
The master-piece however of the author is at the 


282 


NAPLES. 


church of the convent of the Chartreuse, which 
now serves as a hospital for invalided soldiers, 
and represents a Descent from the Cross, in which 
are seven figures, besides two angels in the corner 
of the painting, managed much in the manner of 
Murillo. Saint John sustains the body of our 
Saviour, the Mary Magdalen is weeping over it, 
with a sublime and concentrated expression of 
grief, whilst Joseph of Arimathea is seen in the 
back ground. There is also another classical 
painting by the same hand, of the communion of 
Christ with the Apostles, in which the painter 
departs from his generally dark colouring. For 
the Deposition I am told that Lord Bristol, a great 
admirer and patron of the arts, offered eighty 
thousand dollars, nearly approaching to £20,000 
of English money—but this I should doubt; great 
riches make almost as many enemies as great wit, 
and foreigners, needy themselves, are glad to 
father on the opulent extravagant stories of their 
expenditure, in order to have the malignant 
satisfaction of satirizing their judgment. If an 
innkeeper catch a rich noble, it is a glorious 
harvest for him, not merely in the repletion of 
his pockets, but also in the gratification of a sly 
ridicule; a shirtless waiter will pocket an extra¬ 
vagant present with a sardonic sneer, and I am 
sorry to say that lavish liberality, instead of attract¬ 
ing gratitude, only provokes envy and criticism. 
This however arises from the inherent principle 


NAPLES. 


283 


ot our natures, to desire what is not our own, and 
to dislike those who are richer than ourselves. 
Experience, philosophy, and the conviction that 
each bears his burden—that what is paid in opu¬ 
lence is often stolen in enjoyment, by sickness, 
by domestic misery, and often by early death, 
check this unamiable feeling in the enlightened, 
but the classes who exhibit it are those who 
reflect little, and consider the most exquisite hap¬ 
piness of life to consist in a full purse and an ac¬ 
cumulated income.—I observed in this church a 
large Nativity by Guido, and several paintings 
by Paolo Fanoglia, poisoned by his rivals from 
jealousy at an early age, but who, had his genius 
been matured, would perhaps have rivalled Ra¬ 
phael. Such encomiums are indeed often lavished 
on those whom untoward circumstances have im- 
maturely ravished from posterity, without justice. 
I am willing however to admit them, and will not 
be so far the cynic as to hazard an objection in dis¬ 
favour of flattering tributes, paid to those we can 
never see again. Carlo Maratti is here seen to 
advantage; he is not a painter I admire in ge¬ 
neral, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his lectures to 
the Academy, has, I believe, called him the last 
of the Romans. His Baptism of Christ, however, 
to which I allude, is a striking performance. The 
walls are covered with good Massimos, and the 
spready tapestry-coloured canvas of Lucas Gior- 
daino and Solimenc. This church affords a rich 


284 


NAPLES. 


banquet to the lover of the arts. The Deposition 
of Spagnoletto is reckoned one of the three finest 
pictures of Italy. The two others are, a similar 
subject by Titian at Venice, and the Transfigura¬ 
tion by Raphael at Rome. The convent to which 
this church belongs was founded in 1325—it 
stands under the castle of San Elmo, and com¬ 
mands a view of the bay, the town of Naples, and 
Vesuvius, as well as the plain country as far as 
Caserta. The ornamental sculptured wood-work 
of the interior is very beautiful—the material 
came from the Brazils, and has been admirably 
inlaid by a German monk, a member of the com¬ 
munity. How much is it to be wished that more 
religious communities possessed diligent brethren, 
and that each, in his hours of recreation, devoted 
himself to the embellishment of the habitation 
he occupies! Strangers would not then, so 
often as now, sicken over barren walls; some 
new attraction would be offered to them at every 
step. Why are trees not trained to grow in mo¬ 
nastic gardens, till they present bowers ? Why 
do we see empty beds and scanty stumps of vege¬ 
table nature, when all might exhibit the bounties 
of each succeeding season ? Why do not relics 
abound of the industry of the inmates, instead of 
the sad reality of sullen idleness and languor ? 
The Gospel forbids it not—the Epistles of the 
Fathers command diligence, and many are the 
hours that might be conscientiously abstracted 



235 


NAPLES. 

from devotional exercises. In the quarter of 
Naples called Della Stella exist the famous cata¬ 
combs, which by some have been considered as 
communicating with Pozzuoli; now, however, the 
passage is interrupted, however open it may once 
have been, by the fall of some of the arches. The 
inscriptions and paintings over the tombs are all 
referable to the time of the primitive Christians. 
Here are deposited the bones of San Gennaro and 
San Guadioso, the latter of whom was bishop of 
Bithynia. I saw nothing interesting in these ca¬ 
tacombs—the only reflection they inspire is the 
melancholy one that we are all doomed to occupy 
similar habitations, and to return to dust; many 
of us before we have done any thing worthy to 
mark our existence, and almost all sooner than 
we desire. The church of Santa Chiara, in the 
quarter of San Giuseppe, presents the visiter with 
the novel sight of a temple without a nave. The 
walls of this building have fallen once, and 
threaten to fall again, from the unsupported width 
of the roof. On each side are chapels, to the 
number of ten, and the frescos to be seen here 
are fine, but not very interesting as regards their 
authors : Mura Bonito and Conca worked here, 
but these are not names like those of Raphael, 
Guido, Domenichino, and Caracci. The design 
of the architecture is Gothic; the interior of the 
church resembles more an enormous ball-room 
than a place of worship. It was founded in 1310, 


280 


NAPLES. 


and consecrated in 1344. It is used by the nuns, 
and served by the priests of the Franciscan order, 
and contains a pillar of the temple of Solomon, 
brought from Jerusalem. It repays the visiter 
for his trouble of inspection, being highly adorned. 
On the walls were once to be seen the frescos of 
Ghiotto, but an abominable Spaniard, called Be- 
rionovo, caused them to be white-washed, saying 
that the colours made the interior look melan¬ 
choly. Ye detestable successors of the Moors ! 
when shall the traveller reach a spot undefiled 
and uninjured by your barbarous want of taste ?— 
In this church repose some of the members of the 
royal family of Anjou, and amongst others Gio¬ 
vanni the First. The church called Gesu Novo 
is perhaps the most beautiful temple in Naples. 
It was built in 1584, after the design of Pietro 
Provedo, a Jesuit. It is in the shape of a cross, 
and has three aisles ; but its cupola was destroyed 
by an earthquake in 1688. In the angles under 
what was once the cupola, are to be seen the 
portraits of the four Evangelists, by Lanfranco; 
and in the chapel called of the Trinity is a picture 
on the mystery of the same subject, by Guercino, 
together with two frescos by Cosenzio. Above 
the painting of Saint Ignazio, which is by Anpa- 
rato, are the pictures by Spagnoletto. Those 
over the arch of the great altar are by Massimo. 
The picture which attracts most attention is the 
one I have noted by Guercino, but I confess I 


NAPLES. 


287 


find it dark, and it wants also simplicity; there are 
many figures in it crowded together, and it stands 
in an unfavourable light. The attention of the 
spectator is fatigued in its contemplation. Guer- 
cino is a fine painter, and may hold a very re¬ 
spectable rank by the side of Guido in merit, and 
I think his delineation of female beauty is perhaps 
superior to that of any painter in the Caracci 
school, of which he was one. Why is it then that 
this master, Guido, and Hannibal Caracci him¬ 
self, are surpassed in pleasing effect by Domeni- 
chino ? Perhaps because they are not so natural: 
it is the talent, no doubt, of representing real 
nature under seducing colours, that has placed 
both Domenichino and the Spanish Murillo on 
the same point of eminence in the arts with Ra¬ 
phael. When these great men wished to repre¬ 
sent the workings of passion, they did not go to 
sketch-books, or the works of other masters, to 
borrow ideas; they had observed nature, and had 
treasured her workings in their minds, to serve 
them on occasion: as Johnson expresses himself 
concerning the intuitive genius of Shakspeare, 
when they wanted to copy nature, they looked 
inwards and found her there. The pillars of the 
church are handsomely ornamented with mosaic, 

4 

and formed in part of Sicilian marble; but I 
found in them the same fault that struck me in 
those of the cathedral of Saint John at Valetta in 
Malta, as well as in some others of the temples in 


288 


NAPLES. 


Sicily; they are too gaudy for the solemn dignity 
which should reign in a place of worship. In 
Naples is to be found what the far-famed capital 
of his holiness, Rome, does not afford; I mean a 
church with the whole external front of marble. 
It is attached to the order of the Geronimites, 
and the principal part of the architecture is by 
Dionysio Lazzari. The interior is distributed 
into three aisles, and there are twelve columns of 
Egyptian granite, in single pieces of twenty feet 
in height; above these are architraves instead 
of arches, which is a barbarous mistake of the 
builder. There is here also an excess of splen¬ 
dour and ornament, so as even to offend the eye 
with repletion of show. It is full of pictures, to 
which great names are affixed, but there are only 
two of interest, and those are by Guido:—one 
over the altar-piece in the Sacristia, representing 
the meeting between Christ and Saint John the 
Baptist, which has however very dark and obscure 
shadows, and is by no means in the pleasing style 
of the master: yet it is not without merit, and 
produces much effect. The other is a figure 
of Saint Francis in devotion, of which there is a 
repetition at Rome, and discovers the saint kneel¬ 
ing, in flowing robes of a dark blue or grey 
colour, with both hands extended on high, whilst 
his eyes are directed also to heaven. The saint 
is supposed to be declining in years, but the form 
exhibits all the vigour of robust manhood. The 


NAPLES. 


289 


colouring of this picture is also dull, but the 
subject and conception of the figure have been 
reckoned fine, and it has been often copied by 
painters. It is not seen to much advantage in its 
present position. The furniture and wardrobe of 
this church are splendid in the extreme, and the 
annexed monastery has a valuable collection of 
books. In the library is to be seen a manuscript 
copy of the tragedies of Seneca, illuminated with 
miniatures, which represent the action of each, 
done by Solario. This church and convent are 
situated in a quarter of the town called “ di 
San Lorenzo.” The church of the Annunziata 
had been destroyed by fire in the year 1757, at 
which period perished all the paintings with 
which it was adorned by Santa Fede, Lanfranco, 
and other painters. The grand altar was besides 
consumed, which had cost seventy thousand 
ducats, and the form of which was adopted from 
a design of Fansaga. Its restoration to its pre¬ 
sent state was begun in 1760, and completed in 
1782. The money laid out was nearly £50,000 
sterling, and it is now one of the handsomest 
places of Catholic worship in the town. The 
marble columns which support the interior are to 
be admired, but there are no good paintings left. 
Behind the Annunziata is to be seen the fountain 

of the “ Scapellata,” a work of Giovanni da 
♦ 

Nola, executed in the year 1542. Nola was pupil 
of the famous Michael Angelo. There are many 


u 


290 


NAPLES. 


other churches in Naples, of more or less impor¬ 
tance, but I have, I believe, noted those which are 
of most celebrity. That called “ Dei Spagnuoli ” 
contains several fine monuments, and indeed such 
are scattered up and down in every direction. 
From the edifices built in honour of the great 
Ruler of the universe, I pass to those constructed 
for the sacred persons of the kings who rule over 
the natives of the country in which they stand. 
The first palace, properly so called, is the Pa¬ 
lazzo Vecchio, which was built in Naples at the 
time of Charles the Fifth of Germany; for all the 
princes of Anjou, in the early periods of history, 
inhabited castles or fortified places in their dif¬ 
ferent seats of conquest, in order to be protected 
from the attacks of a dangerous populace, and to 
intimidate them by an armed position; and even 
this place has its different drawbridges and other 
fortifications. The present Palazzo Reale, which 
his majesty inhabits, was begun by the Count of 
Lemos in 1600 , on occasion of the visit of Philip 
the Third of Spain to Naples, and finished by the 
succeeding viceroy, the Duke of Benevento. It 
is nearly one hundred feet in height from the 
ground, by one hundred and fifty in length. The 
proportions therefore of its dimensions are im¬ 
posing, and denote a princely abode. The whole 
building, including the appendages, occupies 
much ground, and communicates with the arsenal, 
in which I observed two fine steam-vessels laid up 


NAPLES. 


291 


in ordinary, they are of eighty-horse power each, 
and though purchased from England at an enormous 
expense, have never been brought into service: 
the marine force in store is pitiable to one who 
has seen an English dockyard. The interior of 
the palace is more commodious than grand. The 
suites of apartments for reception on state occa¬ 
sions are not very striking; the throne consists 
simply of two chairs elevated on a step platform. 
There are some fine pictures, however, in the dif¬ 
ferent levee rooms, which are three in number, 
besides the audience hall. Those I admired most 
were two by Guido, one representing the four 
seasons, and the other the race of Atalanta and 
Hippomenes. The latter is in the best time of the 
author, and is beautifully coloured and designed. 
Guido has a peculiar manner of spreading a silvery 
light over his pictures, and sometimes quite daz¬ 
zles the eye, and produces a magical effect, by 
this means : indeed, it is this, I think, which may 
by observation enable the amateur to distinguish 
between those which are really by him and the pic¬ 
tures of his pupils; many of whom colour equally 
well, and design equally well, but have not been 
able to catch in imitation this peculiar property 
or power. It is necessary, however, to have seen 
many of the works of the painter before this cir¬ 
cumstance will be appreciated; but when once 
the observer apprehends it, he will not then be 
easily deceived by copies of Guido’s works for 

u 2 


292 


NAPLES. 


originals, at least not in the high class of the 
painter’s performances. Time, however, is re¬ 
quired for this difficult study; all masters vary so 
much, that scarcely any general rules can be laid 
down for judgment in distinguishing them, and 
perpetual practice is required even to understand 
a single school tolerably well. After all, the 
learned differ; true pictures are sometimes thrown 
away from caprice, and dealers make fortunes by 
their pretension, and the general ignorance of pur¬ 
chasers and of the opulent. The stumbling-block in 
this respect to Domenichino is, I think, the Cava- 
liere D’Arpino, a very eminent painter, and whose 
works I have myself taken for Domenichino’s; and 
they are doubtless often sold in England for his, 
but in Domenichino, even when on a large scale, 
the muscles and articles of the limbs are minutely 
expressed, or at least generally well defined, 
whereas there is less terseness in the details of 
D’Arpino. For striking first-sight effect, I think 
the latter equal to his prototype. Here again the 
eye and experience are the sole guides for judg¬ 
ment : both Domenichino and D’Arpino must be 
studied. I saw in the palace a painting of the 
early time of Raphael, divided into two parts; 
the higher shows the Eternal Father, with two 
Angels, the lower the Virgin and Child, Saint 
John, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul, and two female 
figures; so that whatever its merits may be, it 
has anachronisms enough. The personages are 


NAPLES. 


2<J3 


hard and dry, and supposing it to be by the great 
painter to whom it is attributed, my meed of 
praise must be withheld from it. What pleased 
me most in it was the force of colouring, which is 
certainly great. I saw here also a very beautiful 
Caravaggio, of Christ disputing with the Doctors, 
clear, well-toned, and altogether satisfactory. 
The figure of our Saviour is that of a young man, 
not yet out of his teens. The Dream of Joseph, 
by Guercino, is also good. For the first time I 
had an opportunity of judging of the performances 
of Camuccini, a modern artist whom I almost 
prefer to the French David, and who has laboured 
in the same style. They consist of two large 
gallery pictures, of the deaths of Csesar and Vir¬ 
ginia. The grouping is good, the conception 
grand and classic, and the position of the figures 
easy and natural. The colours however are pale. 
The ancient painters, and particularly those of 
the Dutch school, were satisfied with few per¬ 
sonages in a picture; provided these were suffi¬ 
cient to explain the subject in the full force of 
their conceptions, they were unwilling to intro¬ 
duce many. In later times, however, and I may 
say in the decline of the art, the ground is en¬ 
cumbered with multitudes of persons in different 
attitudes, and thus the attention is withdrawn 
from the original plan to the contemplation of 
their action, which should be as secondary and 
subordinate appendages. This I imagine to pro- 


294 


NAPLES. 


ceed from want of vigorous and masterly judg¬ 
ment, or inspiration , in the painter, who is glad to 
hide his poverty of original conception in mere¬ 
tricious and foreign ornament and trick. The 
Venetian school, that of the followers of Murillo, 
or the Sevillian, the French, and the English, as 
also the Neapolitans and the pupils of Rubens, 
who himself set a very bad example, have all 
wofully erred in this particular. There are 
doubtless many figures in some of the great works 
of the good masters, but they rarely encumber 
the ground, and indeed so cautious were the 
Dutch in this respect, that although painting in a 
style which required many figures, their pictures 
being ordinarily subjects of society, the inimitable 
Gerard Dow, Ostade, and even Teniers himself, 
made their best pictures contain no more than 
two or three figures; sometimes indeed only one. 

The private apartments of the king and queen 
are very comfortable, and resemble more those of 
opulent individuals than of crowned heads. They 
are in distinct suites, and furnished in the modern 
French style. That of the king terminates in a ter¬ 
race, on which there is an onamented walk amongst 
fiower-beds and pavilions. The design of this royal 
palace was furnished by Domenico Fontana. It 
adjoins to the great theatre of San Carlos, and has 
a handsome space in front, from which the passen¬ 
ger sees it to advantage. Opposite is a church, with 
a dome, dedicated to San Francisco di Paula, and 


NAPLES. 


295 


in the middle between the palace and the church 
are placed two equestrian statues of Charles and 
Ferdinand of Bourbon, in bronze. The two horses 
and statue of Charles are by Canova, that of Fer- 
. dinand is by Cali, a Neapolitan.—The royal pa¬ 
lace of Capo di Monte was one of the favourite 
retreats of Murat. The view from the balcony 
takes in the island of Capri, the coast of Italy, the 
town of Naples, Vesuvius, and the various neigh¬ 
bouring hills, and much garden-ground immedi¬ 
ately below. The site of this palace commands a 
prospect as interesting as any of those to be seen 
from royal residences. The interior decorations 
are but meagre. There are however three tapes 
tries, one a portrait of the late Charles the Tenth 
of France, another the death of Admiral Coligni, 
and the third the adventure of Henry the Fourth 
with the miller. These are well done. I saw a 
likeness of the favourite Spanish pointer of Ferdi¬ 
nand the First, the late king, who was devotedly 
attached to sporting. A wing was wanted to this 
palace, which has been added by the reigning 
monarch. The rooms are generally very large, 
and it is an imposing edifice. During some time 
it served as a museum for pictures and antiques, 
and in the bed-room of the queen is to be seen a 
beautiful mosaic pavement from Pompeii. These 
two are the only palaces containing any thing in 
their interior of much interest to the traveller. 

Naples has several promenades, drives, and 


296 


NAPLES. 


walks : the most picturesque is that of Capo 
di Monte, and the most level that of the Chiaja. 
The first is a continuation of the Strada di To¬ 
ledo, and leads to the royal palace, crossing what 
is called the Valli della Sanita, by a bridge; and 
the two hills which support it are called the 
hills of Life and of Health. This road abounds 
with romantic views, and is covered with luxu¬ 
riant trees and herbage. The drive or promenade 
of the Chiaja is by the side of the “ Villa Reale,” 
a magnificent alley of trees and shrubs near a 
mile in length. I may however remark, that in 
the whole capital of Naples there is only this one 
shady walk ; but as the country and sylvan scenes * 
are so easily accessible, and are so very beautiful, 
it is not perhaps necessary to have more. 

The botanical garden of Naples is, in my opinion, 
very inferior to that of Palermo. It was formed 
in 1810, under the direction of the architect Fazio. 
The extent of the ground for plants is forty 
“ moggia,” that is, forty times the space necessary 
for growing a bushel of corn. Till the seventeenth 
century there was a botanical garden above the 
“ Casa dei Miracoli,” belonging to the hospital of 
the Menziata. At the end of the last century it 
was proposed to add to the Academia Reale the 
gardens of Santa Teresa, and to make there a bo¬ 
tanical garden. Signor Tinore is the director of 
the present establishment, and exercises the charge 
reposed in him with much care and diligence: 


NA PLES. 


297 


he is in correspondence with most of the botanical 
establishments of Europe. 

There are eighteen public theatres at Naples, be¬ 
sides those for “ Marionettes,” and the family of 
Punch. At that called the “ Fenice ” there are 
comic melodrames and operas ; at the “ Fioren- 
tini,” comedies and operas; at those of the San 
Carlos and Fondo, which are the most extensive, 
there are operas and ballets. The “ Teatro Novo” 
has comic operas, as well as that of “ San Ferdi- 
nando,” which however is not always open. San 
Carlos, with the others, are scarcely ever closed ex¬ 
cept during Lent, as is the common case in all Catho¬ 
lic countries. Let however any one who is fond of 
innocent amusement, and desirous of returning 
home with a light and jocund heart, betake him¬ 
self to the little San Carlino theatre, and eschew 
San Carlos. It is there that, in an oblong room 
of ordinary dimensions, he will see the best comic 
actors perhaps in Europe, and enjoy perpetual 
amusement, whilst even the lover and professor of 
music may languish with vexation amidst the 
tedious monotony of the first opera-house in the 
world. True indeed is it that comfort does not 
lie in the splendour of ostentatious wealth, and 
equally true also that jocularity and mirth may 
be enjoyed independent of the society of a splen¬ 
did saloon. At San Carlos you hear the syrens 
and heroes of the histrionic art, at San Carlino 
you meet familiar Pulcinella, the idol of the Nea- 


298 


NAPLES. 



politans. I have given remarks on paintings, on 
statues, and on temples, but I have not yet 
touched upon this illustrious personage. Pul- 
cinella, in Italian, means a small fowl or chick, 
and was applied in derision, as a nick-name, to a 
youth of Acerra, a village not far from Naples on 
the road to Avellino. The clown was born with 
a projecting nose, and had the whole of the upper 
part of his face marked with a black natural stain. 
He had a gawky gait, and possessed a certain de¬ 
gree of facetiousness and satirical humour, mixed 
with apparent simplicity, which gave a contrast 
to his discourse, and afforded delight to those 
with whom he conversed. Ultimately he ap¬ 
peared at Naples, dressed in white trowsers, with 
a white riding-dress tied across the waist, a peaked 
hat without a brim, and a small riding whip. 
This strange apparition collected groups, and 
amongst the curious who flocked to see him was 
the family of the famous Camerini, a writer for 
the stage. They admired the eccentric peasant, 
took him to their home, and finally adopted him 
as one of the family. The talents and colloquial 
wit he displayed induced Camarini to introduce 
his figure on the stage, as a mask from whence 
to discharge satire and to extract laughter, and 
with so much success that this buffoon has re¬ 
tained undisputed possession of it to the present 
day, with the undiminished admiration of the 
public. The opera of San Carlos is now sus- 


NAPLES. 


2 99 


tained by subscription, and though not so well 
mounted as formerly, the administration have 
engaged some respectable singers. Barbaja, the 
late director, told me it had nearly ruined him, 
and the truth is the poor man was selling his col¬ 
lection of pictures, formed in happier days, when 
he had the administration of the gambling-tables 
as well as the theatres. The tenors I heard were 
Fedrazzi and Duprez, of whom I preferred the 
latter, who has a charming organ. I heard again 
the Ronzi de Begnis, after an interval of many 
years, and confess I remarked the course of time 
in her changing notes. The Tacchinardi has a 
soprano voice, with powerful execution, but it is 
not very touching; although a good singer, she 
cannot for an instant be compared with Malibran. 
Ronconi, and the nephew of the veteran Porto, 
were the two basses, of whom the latter has a 
voice equal almost to that of his uncle—but where 
are Rubini, the Fodor, the Colbean Lablaehe, and 
David and Tamburini ? Some grown old, all ab¬ 
sent;—and to me the great theatre of Naples re¬ 
sounds only with the echo of its former harmony. 
Fifteen years have given me the gout and some 
grey hairs, and what is worse, have rendered me 
more querulous and less easy to be amused than 
I was before I had the honour to count them. As 
the Neapolitan school of music is famous in Eu¬ 
rope, 1 will note that it is in the monastery of 
San Pietro di Majella, in the quarter of the town 



300 


NAPLES. 


called San Giuseppe. The number of scholars of 
both sexes, educated free of expense, is one hun¬ 
dred. Somelli and Paisiello left their manuscripts 
and posthumous works to this establishment, and 
the lessees of the different theatres are obliged to 
deposit here the partitions of music which are 
presented on the different stages. There are two 
directors, one of whom is the famous Cherubini, 
for the vocal, and there is another for the instru¬ 
mental department. The musical library is fine 
and well chosen. Besides masters for music, the 
pupils have the advantage of professors, who in¬ 
struct them in various other branches of know¬ 
ledge, necessary for the education of youth. This 
establishment is however exceeded in consequence 
by that of Vienna, which contains five times the 
number of scholars, has an archive of seven thou¬ 
sand works in ancient and modern music, with a 
gallery containing the portraits of almost all the 
early and contemporary luminaries and distin¬ 
guished cultivators of the tuneful art. The an¬ 
cient Neapolitan school of painting follows the 
Roman in its character. Andrea de Saleano, a 
pupil of Raphael, was its founder. Paintings 
however exist of one Tomaso degli Stefani, a 
Neapolitan, painted as far back as the year 1231. 
Two very eminent in this class are the Cavaliere 
D’Arpino, and Massimo, surnamed Stanzione; 
the former, as I have already observed, so closely 
resembles Domenichino as to be often mistaken 


NAPLES. 


30 i 


for him in his works, and the other is called the 
Guido of Naples. Ribera, a pupil of Caravaggio, 
and called the Spagnoletto, is the giant of the 
Neapolitan school, and painted much for the town. 
His daughter’s being debauched by John of Aus¬ 
tria plunged the father into such distress that he 
left Italy with a single servant, and was never 
more heard of. He was of a very proud, vindic¬ 
tive character, but a great name as a painter. Sal¬ 
vator Rosa is classed also in this school: his life 
has been written by Lady Morgan. Of a great 
and original genius, he was a poet, a painter, an 
engraver, and a comedian: he excelled in all he 
undertook, and is now one of the most popular 
landscape-painters in Europe. His historical 
subjects are well treated, though sometimes his 
figures approach to the roundness of Francanzano, 
who was his master. A sojourn he made in 
Calabria, where fame, always delighting in the 
marvellous, associated him with the bandits of the 
country, formed his peculiar style, and none have 
surpassed him in the delineation of trees, torrents, 
and mountains, and the savage wildness of nature. 
I have seen however some landscapes by him 
which have all the tenderness and feeling of 
Claude. Whatever privations he may have suf¬ 
fered in these rugged abodes have been amply re¬ 
paid by the great fame their delineation has pro¬ 
cured him in his works, and it would be difficult 
to point out in the present day any artist to whom 


302 


NAPLES. 


is awarded such an universal tribute of applause 
by the common consent of mankind. In the art 
of engraving, the invention of which we owe to 
the Florentines, the Neapolitans have no pecu¬ 
liar school, but Ribera, Salvator Rosa, Lucas 
Giordano, and in later days Raphael Morghen, 
have all distinguished themselves by etchings 
and prints. In the modern style of lithography, 
Bianehi and Cucinello are at the head of the art 
they profess. I cannot say that I was much 
pleased with what I saw of the modern school of 
sculpture at Naples, and indeed the Neapolitans 
have never been famous for the labours of the chisel. 
Their most popular artists are Solare and Antonio 
Galli. In painting they have, for figures, Guerra 
and Smargasse, who is, I believe, a Frenchman,—- 
Fergolo and Caselli for landscape; of these the 
first is perhaps the most eminent. I saw a fine 
production executed by him, a view of Palermo 
and its neighbourhood, purchased by the present 
king. There is an exhibition-room for the en¬ 
couragement of artists. In pictures of still life, 
when I saw it, it was miserably poor. I may ob¬ 
serve that at Naples I have seen no private col¬ 
lections of pictures or antiquities entitled to par¬ 
ticular notice: a restorer to the Museum has a 
meritorious saint, monk, and angel, by Guido, for 
which, although a poor man, he has refused five 
hundred pounds from my guide, Mr. Woodburn 
of London, our great English connoisseur, whose 


NAPLES. 


303 


good taste and judgment I have had an opportu 
nity of being acquainted with. The proprietor 
has also some other paintings, but none which 
equal this in merit, although distinguished by 
very great names. The saint, with a head white 
from age, is turned in an oblique direction from 
the spectator, whilst the angel is introduced in 
the corner communicating with him. It is cer¬ 
tainly a fine painting, both as regards composi¬ 
tion, colour, and design. The proprietor is said 
to have acquired it for a small sum during the re¬ 
volution ; and the three companion pictures, infe¬ 
rior in quality, are two of them at Paris, in the 
royal collection, and the third at Naples, in the 
Museum. I was shocked and surprised by the 
enormous prices asked at Naples for indifferent 
paintings; indeed, they were so extravagantly 
disproportionate to their merit, that I was at a 
loss to conceive from what circumstance the ex¬ 
tortion proceeded, whether from ignorance or 
knavery. Every successive stranger has however 
drained something from this land, so fertile in the 
arts, and little now remains worth buying. John 
Bull, formerly the beast with horns that turned 
all he touched to gold, has been lately more cau¬ 
tious; he has no more “ foenum in cornuhe has 
bled freely enough. The Russians, an infant 
nation in taste, are beginning to take his place, to 
the benefit of the poor Italians, who want money, 
and they need not regret what they part with at 


304 


NAPLES. 


the prices paid, were their habits of economy and 
society such as might he desired: but it is better 
for them to have their pictures, than to waste 
their value in gambling and sensual gratifications. 

When the Neapolitan forces, of eighty thousand 
strong, were driven back in Romagna by twenty- 
five thousand Austrians, their general, Murat, 
whose heart and courage were as great as his po¬ 
litical knowledge was small, bit his fingers, and 
exclaimed, “ O for ten thousand of my French 
countrymen!” The Neapolitans are a fine class 
of men in person, tall and well-built, and by no 
means demonstrate in their external appearance 
the effeminate character which is attributed to 
them. They are said however to be very base 
in conduct, and tyrannical to all strangers on 
whom they are quartered; worse than locusts in 
Egypt are the Neapolitans on the Italian plains. 
When they were in Bologna, they ruined many 
of the places they inhabited, and are cursed by 
the natives to this day. The language of Naples 
is very impure Italian; indeed, a person familiar 
with Tuscan has some difficulty in following an 
ordinary discourse. The dialect too varies in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the same town. There is the 
Chiajan, that of Santa Lucia, of Capo di Monte, 
and indeed of every different suburb. Many 
Greek words have been left by the Greeks, and 
adopted by the moderns; amongst the rest “ bas- 
tazo,” for a porter, from the word |3a<rn*£w, which 


NAPLES. 


305 


signifies “to carry” in the Hellenic tongue. Their 
wit however is very great, and all are ready with 
an apt reply. The representations at San Carlino 
are in the Neapolitan tongue. I have heard some 
Englishmen observe that humour was peculiar to 
their nation; that is, I suppose, they mean by 
humour drollery of expression, which may excite 
mirth from the incongruity of assemblage in 
images which are aptly but unexpectedly brought 
together, or from action or gestures which are 
either overcharged, or at variance with the appa¬ 
rent subject treated. I confess, however, I think 
the Italians in general, and the Neapolitans in 
particular, exceed any nation I have yet seen 
in their portraiture of laughable occurrences, and 
their abundance of quaint replies, from the high¬ 
est order of satire down to the lowest buffoonery. 
On the French stage nature is too often forsaken; 
there is a perpetual attempt at quick retort; even 
at the “ Variet^s/’ which I may oppose to the 
San Carlino, and where you have broad farce, the 
attention is often fatigued by an eternal play of 
words and forced analogies: and at the English 
small theatres the comic representations are often 
dull, and void of taste and imagination. The 
actor Liston is a performer of high merit, but his 
effect is more in what he does and what he looks, 
than in what he says : his action and counte¬ 
nance express more than his lips utter. With 
the Neapolitans nothing is forced; the ludicrous 


30G 


NAPLES. 


comes and goes without effort; the trifler amuses, 
the buffoon produces laughter, you are never 
weary, and go away satisfied with the natural 
mode of acting and speaking which the performers 
exhibit; you saw them to be merry, and you were 
satisfied. 

I am sorry to say that the use of the knife 
is general amongst the Neapolitans, and an acci¬ 
dental burst of passion is too often attended with 
homicide, even amongst the better orders. They 
are however very simple, and think strangers 
always fiercer devils than themselves; so that an 
angry word will often make them fly. The laws 
in force are very lax in restraining murder, which, 
if proved to be unpremeditated, and occasioned 
by sudden passion, is not punished with death. 
The sentence is nominally ten years’ imprison¬ 
ment, but often, by soliciting the favour of the 
king, the criminal escapes, perhaps at the end of 
eighteen months. Highway robbery is invariably 
punished with death, and this has the unfor¬ 
tunate effect of making the bandits murder to 
escape detection, knowing as they do that there 
is but one and the same sentence for both crimes. 
I have at the end of this chapter said all the good 
of the Neapolitans that their friends can allow; 
I will now repeat an anecdote from the mouth of 
their enemies. When Charles the Third of Spain 
entered their country, he inquired of the Mar¬ 
quis Tanuccio, a Florentine nobleman, how he 


NAPLES. 


307 


was to treat his new subjects: the minister re¬ 
plied, “ with three F’s,” with “ Festa, Farina, e 
la Forca’—that is, with shows to divert them, as 
they are a credulous gaping people; with flour 
to make paste and maccaroni, for a Neapolitan 
is always eating, and will guttle and cram him¬ 
self even after his appetite is gone; and with 
the gallows to restrain their cruelty and treason. 
They made, in return, the following epigram on 
Charles and Tanuccio, on occasion of the return 
of the former to Spain. T may mention that 
“ Ciaccio ” means, in vulgar Italian, an ass or 
donkey. 

“ Se si parte il re di Spagna, 

La Madonna lo accompagna, 

Ma se lascia con noi Tanuccio, 

Lo Frastiamo sopra un Ciaccio.” 

I see no great wit in this childish composition, 
and insert it only as a sequel to my anecdote. 

The military force of the Neapolitan states does 
not in the aggregate amount to more than sixty 
thousand men, of which fifty are troops of the 
line. The number of their ships of war, including 
great and small, is twenty—a small quota in the 
naval armament of a European empire ; and 
these, I am told, are not well manned. Their 
discipline is however good, and the shortness or 
weakness of their numbers proceeds not from ina¬ 
bility to find sailors, but from an indisposition in 
the government to pay more than a limited num- 


308 


NA PI ES. 


ber. I am inclined to think that Neapolitans 
would do more as a naval than a land force; 
they are by nature and habit fitter for the former 
than the latter. The king however thinks dif¬ 
ferently, and pays all attention to his royal 
guards, foot and horse; and if he succeeds in ren¬ 
dering what soldiers he has a formidable force, 
he will deserve praise ; but I much doubt his suc¬ 
ceeding. The contingents from Sicily, which 
form a large portion of the army, are and always 
will be discontented in his service, and that cor¬ 
dial feeling of patriotism which rendered the 
French invincible while it lasted, and has caused 
the British arms to be so much respected, is 
wanting to the whole corps. Every one however 
has a hobby, and Ferdinand the Second may per¬ 
haps as innocently amuse himself with a military 
plaything, as with a capricious mistress or an in¬ 
triguing tyrannical confessor. To persons like 
myself, whose dear delight is peace, who love an¬ 
tiquities and cultivate letters, a little money laid 
out in excavations of many parts of his dominions 
hitherto unexplored, a few more paintings added 
to his museum, and judicious bounties extended 
to rising men of science, would give more satis¬ 
faction than the most perfect manoeuvres which 
he may bring his troops to execute, and all the 
splendour and glitter of a military parade; but 
he thinks perhaps that the first duty of a leader 
in states is to provide for the safety of his sub- 


NAPLES. 


309 


jects, and that arms, and arms alone, are the 
occupation of royalty: that although it may be 
criminal and unworthy to indulge in ambitious 
schemes, or unprovokedly to molest a neighbour, 
it is a matter of duty and self-preservation to be 
able to resist aggression, and that prudence dic¬ 
tates the expediency of appearing in a position 
able to intimidate those whose amity it may be 
impossible to ensure. The defects, indeed, of 
human nature, which render such a view of things 
just, not merely in empires but also in the for¬ 
tunes of individuals, oftentimes cause the reflec¬ 
tion to escape even crowned heads, how much more 
valuable are the blessings of peace than the fluc¬ 
tuating advantages of war, and that kings con¬ 
quer and nations triumph only to fall in arms by 
turn. Arts and literature, and commerce, and 
manners, are brought to perfection under the 
shade of the olive-branch, whilst the laurels of 
the conqueror often hide wounded brows, and 
sometimes are unworthily worn by him who is 
willing to sacrifice the interests of his country to 
his own private aggrandizement or vanity. A 
writer who defends the Neapolitans, says, that 
no people are less understood by those who make 
a short stay amongst them than they are. They 
have been reproached with want of courage, and 
out of their own territory, of late years, they 
have certainly not distinguished themselves by 
intrepidity; but they defended the country step 


310 


NAPLES. 


by step on the invasion of the French, and 
amongst their leaders there are to be found many 
military men of merit. The corps which formed 
part of the army of Napoleon, both in Spain and 
in Russia, passed as respectable troops. I may 
mention that the Sicilians and the Calabrese were 
allowed by the French to be proverbially brave. 
In all street quarrels at Naples, the bystanders 
invariably protect the weak side. The lower 
order of citizens, the same author says, are gene¬ 
rally honest, although strangers have not been 
disposed to allow them that virtue. This I have 
myself remarked, that a traveller who arrives at an 
inn, and makes purchases at a shop recommended 
by his landlord, does not reflect that the latter 
exacts a per-centage from the tradesman on all 
he sells, for enjoying his patronage. The pur¬ 
chaser pays dear for what he buys, and in the 
true style of John Bull, if he be an Englishman, 
always open to false impressions, says that all 
the natives of the country where he is are rogues, 
because he has been excised by an individual. 

Provisions are dear in the town of Naples; bread, 
meat, and wine, cost more perhaps than in Paris. 
Lodgings also are extravagantly paid for; small 
rooms let high, whilst large palaces go for next 
to nothing. The Palazzo Belvedere, seated above 
the town, and the summer residence of the late 
English ambassador—the water reservoir or cis¬ 
tern of which cost sixty thousand ducats in con- 


NAPLES. 


311 


struction—is now for sale, with the land attached, 
for only double that sum. In spite of the heat at 
Naples, there is always in summer a sea-breeze 
towards mid-day. The display of equipages on a 
Sunday in the public drives might rival the Lon¬ 
don ring. The Neapolitans are all fond of show; 
the lowest merchant will have his gig or carriage; 
the consequence is the usual one; improvidence 
begets poverty, and those who have made a hand¬ 
some figure during their lives often die paupers, 
without enough even to supply them a decent 
burial. All here are fond of good living, and 
exist only for pleasure, when they can enjoy it. 
Their hours are very late; they turn night into 
day. Cards, I am sorry to say, are the diabolical 
books over which they pore, and to which their 
whole attention is directed : I may say, in some 
instances, to an extent on which their very exist¬ 
ence depends. The education of the females is 
generally much neglected. After enumerating 
all the advantages and all the disadvantages of 
Naples, were I to choose a fixed abode, it would 
assuredly not be in that town. There is little 
neatness in the streets, and an eternal noise reigns 
throughout; bustle and confusion for ever sur¬ 
round one. I like more, for myself, the retire¬ 
ment of a Spanish town than the gaiety of an 
Italian one; for a man of pleasure, who is rich, 
there is but one abode in Italy, and that is Naples. 
You may study and economize at Milan, Flo- 


312 


NAPLES. 


rence, and Rome, but those who travel purely for 
amusement will go to spend their money at 
Naples. The hotels are equal to those of Paris; 
that of the Vittoria is the one in which I lodged. 
Zin, the landlord, is a connoisseur of paintings, 
but lost a customer, a rich Jew, by furnishing his 
apartment with crucifixions of our Saviour, in 
which figured the most revolting physiognomies 
of his Asiatic brethren. 




( 313 ) 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES.—August 12, 1835. 


At the end of the Chiaja at Naples rises a hill, 
which formerly was embellished by the villas of 
Cicero, of Marius, of Pompey, of Lucullus, of 
Virgil, and of Pollio; which last of these names 
is, in my opinion, as worthy of fame as any of 
the great ones which precede it. when it is recol¬ 
lected that he was the first who established a 
public library at Rome, and was as gallant and 
renowned a general as an elegant historian. The 
favourite of Augustus, he enjoyed a prolonged 
term of life, and died peaceably at eighty years 
of age, after a useful and honourable career. All 
remains of these edifices have now disappeared, 
but the hill remains in its original beauty; it 
bounds Naples to the west, and a passage is cut 
through the rock, affording a road to the famous 
Pozzuoli, which is called the grotto of Posi- 
lippo. At sunset, in the autumn season, the ob¬ 
lique rays of light penetrate through the cavern, 
which is more than half an English mile in length, 



314 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


with a highly pleasing effect. At its entrance, 
on a steep crag hanging perpendicularly over the 
passage and marked by a small column, is the 
tomb of Virgil. He whom we now consider as a 
god in poetry, whose memory is so much re¬ 
spected, and whose place of sepulture has gained 
so much renown as to be visited by the inhabit¬ 
ants of distant countries, was near losing the 
memory of his last abode, had not the piety of 
Silius Ttalicus, honouring the dignity of the Man¬ 
tuan muse, pointed out this sepulchre to after¬ 
generations by a monumental inscription. Here 
the young and the old pluck some leaf from the 
trees, or gather a stone, or preserve a flower, in 
memory of their visits to the spot, and the retreat 
Virgil loved when living possesses him dead. 
Near this place reposes another poet:—on one 
side of the hill of Posilippo is the small church of 
Santa Maria del Parto, founded by the poet San- 
nazaro, and the house he occupied is still to be 
seen, contiguous to the bank washed by the sea. 
His tomb in the church is admired; the sup¬ 
porters to the monument are two figures of Apollo 
and Minerva, found, it is said, on the site of the 
villa of Lucullus, but presented in this holy pre¬ 
cinct under the reverend names of David and 
Judith. I question however the antiquity of 
these statues ; they appear of a much more 
modern date than that which is ascribed to them; 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


315 


the marble is not white, but full of veins, and 
they seemed, to me at least, heavy. 

On the evening of the sixth of August, I left 
Naples for Castellamare, which place I reached 
after a sail of about three hours. The distance 
is however only fourteen miles. At night, the 
face of nature illumined by the moon, with the 
outlines of the mountains cutting with their dark 
edges the silver azure of the sky, produced a 
striking and most beautiful effect. Vesuvius ex¬ 
haled from its conical summit a cloud of smoke, 
which, growing wider and thinner in the distance, 
appeared like a plume of grey feathers waving to 
the wind. Castellamare is a watering-place 
famous for mineral springs, and well peopled, 
having ten thousand inhabitants. The waters are 
most beneficial for the gouty and the bilious, and 
are variously intense in quality. They are sul¬ 
phureous and purgative, and when they do not 
act upon the bowels, search out other parts 
of the system, particularly the kidneys, and pass 
away, either in urine or perspiration, with the 
best effects to those who use them. The natives 
of Calabria, Apulia, and the other Neapolitan 
provinces, flock to these waters in the summer 
season; they arrive green as olives, or yellow as 
oranges, and depart with clear and healthy com¬ 
plexions. Many English, Russian, French, and 
other foreign families, fix their abodes in this 
watering-place during the summer, to avoid the 


316 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


heats, and almost all take the waters, some from 
necessity and some from fashion. Mr. Roskelly, 
the eminent practitioner of Naples, a man to be 
praised as often as he is named, especially by 
myself, for he is the only medical man whose 
prescriptions and advice have benefited my health, 
has a high opinion of the efficacy of these mineral 
springs, and prefers them for his patients, in many 
instances, to the antidotes and drugs found at 
the chemists. Castellamare is barren of antiqui¬ 
ties ; but it possesses what are more essential to 
its visiters, namely, excellent inns. I may add, 
the place is not infected by flies or gnats, which 
are so offensive in most towns of this latitude 
during the hot weather. 

On the morning after my arrival, I embarked for 
Sarento, which is eight Italian miles distant, and 
had the pleasure of contemplating its temple of Nep¬ 
tune from the sea. This ancient edifice consists of 
a vault on the shore, which communicates with an¬ 
other at some distance by a path cut through a large 
projecting rock, thus forming two divisions. The 
second vault, which is of considerable size, pre¬ 
sents a chamber full of deep water, fit for bathing, 
for which purpose it was doubtless used in an¬ 
cient times. There are projections of pavement, 
and some remains of ancient walls, under the sea 
in front of the entrance, indicating that the whole 
distance between the two caverns was enclosed 
by walls. The admirer of Italian literature will 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


317 


here enjoy a treat:—the house inhabited by Tasso 
is still to be seen. Without entering into the 
question whether this poet be equal to Virgil or 
Milton, (for I believe no one will dare to compare 
any succeeding epic writer with Homer,) it can¬ 
not be disputed that he has passages of ten¬ 
derness and description, the beauty of which 
appears to me never to have been surpassed. In 
the garden of Armida, he may have copied the 
author of the Odyssey—and that indeed is no 
fault—but generally speaking he is quite original, 
and dependent for praise upon himself alone. 
What once served for his residence is of moderate 
size and antiquated construction ; a staircase, se¬ 
parating at the top into two branches, leads to the 
different apartments, most of which, I was told, 
remain in the same state as they were when he 
inhabited them. The proprietor occasionally ac¬ 
commodates families who choose Sarento for a 
residence. The terrace on which Tasso used 
to recreate himself is not of large dimensions, 
but commands a beautiful view of Naples, and 
the opposite coast of Misenum and Pozzuoli. 
The balustrades or railing of this palace were 
formerly of worked volcanic stone; they have 
been exchanged for the more light and fashion¬ 
able material, iron. That, however, which was 
once the abode of genius, has to me a charm after 
the inspiring spirit has fled: I delight in treading 
the sanctuaries of the learned and the ingenious. 


318 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


No one can help attentively investigating their si¬ 
tuations, and feeling enthusiasm on spots which have 
been hallowed by the presence of those inspired 
from heaven for the benefit or delight of mankind. 
The shores of Greece are still the shores “ where 
burning Sappho loved and sung,” although no 
poetry resounds there now; and the imagination 
may people Marathon with shades of heroes, 
though there are no more Persians to destroy. 
From the town of Sarento are to be seen remains 
of two ancient temples, one to Venus and another 
to Fortune, placed at a point of land some way 
off, and through which a current of the sea passes. 
To this promontory many parties of pleasure 
repair ; pic-nics are made up by the neigh¬ 
bouring residents, and passengers halt to re¬ 
fresh themselves under the ruins, and enjoy the 
amenity of the climate and the prospect. Inde¬ 
pendently of its classic associations, the whole of 
this coast is beautiful. A cool and refreshing 
breeze generally reigns in the summer from nine 
in the morning till four in the afternoon, and I 
have observed that in Naples, and also in this 
quarter, the ardours of Sirius are more intense 
after sunset than at mid-day. The population of 
Sarento may amount to eight thousand inhabit¬ 
ants. The duomo, or cathedral, is a neat build¬ 
ing, and the episcopal chair or throne has its 
canopy supported by two marble pillars, one of 
which is made of giallo antico, procured from the 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


319 


ruins of the temple of Venus. There are many 
bas-reliefs exhibited at the entrance to this church; 
among the rest 1 saw a remarkable one, repre¬ 
senting the seven sages of Greece, and two others, 
roughly executed, of the Battle of the Amazons 
and the Rape of the Sabines. Tricks upon tra¬ 
vellers are frequent here, and I was on this occa¬ 
sion the chosen object of imposition. The guide 
of the place told me that an old woman had re¬ 
cently discovered, whilst at labour in the fields, 
an ancient and very magnificent vase, for which 
she had already refused twelve piastres. I 
anxiously procured this relic for examination, 
and found it a modern antique-shaped English 
sugar-bason, of a black colour. The cheat was 
immediately detected, when I saw that on a side 
medallion, a little boy, dressed in the costume of 
the last century, was dancing to a tambourine 
which he held in his hand. After an excellent 
dinner at Sarento, I departed for the island of 
Capri, which I reached after a sail of four hours. 
The shape of this island is that of a slice of melon, 
elongated and very narrow. The finest and most 
picturesque scenery is towards the side which 
faces Africa. Murat expelled Sir Hudson Lowe 
and the British from this point, and the national 
flag of the leopards was lowered before the hero. 
I trust my countrymen will sometimes confess 
that they have been beaten by the generals of 
Bonaparte, without cavilling at the writer who 


320 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


may commemorate their misfortunes. Capri is 
miserably poor, but the island abounds in the 
picturesque; the town itself is situated on an 
eminence, where we slept, and there is another 
village of large size at about two miles to the 
left, called Donna Capri, ascended by steps, 
which amount in number to the days of the year. 
Vegetables and fruit are carried from the conti¬ 
nent to supply this barren isle, the population 
of which cannot exceed five thousand persons. 
Quails are abundant here in the season, and form 
an article of commerce. The wine made in the 
island is in the hands of a French house, established 
at Naples. The liquor, as drank on the spot, is not 
unpalatable, but what is generally sold as Capri 
wine is much adulterated with other vintages. On 
the point of disembarkation there is no pier, and 
all that meets the eye are a few huts of fishermen. 
The ruins of the palace of Tiberius are to the 
southern extremity of the island, and, were it not 
for the scenery, are hardly worth the trouble of 
visiting. The obscene caves recorded by Sueto¬ 
nius have been destroyed by time, and if it were 
not authenticated by history, it would be difficult 
to believe that an emperor should have fixed his 
residence in such a spot, remote from the world, 
when there are doubtless many places on the 
main land equally eligible for enjoyments, how¬ 
ever criminal, and more convenient for the easy 
acquisition of luxuries and the ordinary comforts 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


321 


of life. Some of the ancient medals found at 
Capri are disgustingly indecent. The blue grotto 
is a chamber in the rocky side of the island, ap¬ 
proached through a very narrow pass, just high 
and wide enough to admit a small boat, and in 
which the partial transmission of light causes the 
sea to appear of a dark blue colour. There is 
nothing besides the palace of Tiberius, and this 
grotto, that should attract strangers to Capri, 
who are not painters; but for the latter there 
are romantic sites and splendid points of view, 
which may employ their pencils and their studies 
for many weeks. The only industry of the 
islanders consists in making straw fly-fans. Na¬ 
ture has here imparted a pure sky and healthy 
marine breezes—Hygeian gales are wafted con¬ 
tinually through the isle—but she has denied 
riches and luxuriant gifts. In the opulent coun¬ 
tries of Europe, the towns are clouded by impure 
smoke, and the respiration is often impeded by 
unwholesome exhalations; the health of the human 
race there dwindles to debility, whilst at Capri 
the elastic spirit bounds under the weight of 
threescore, unlike the dull and faint manhood of 
a commercial existence. Thus it seems that per¬ 
fect happiness has nowhere been ordained for 
this world, and a compensation of good and evil 
pervades animated nature. Bad health, physical 
and positive misery, exist where there is nothing 
to distract the mind; and where the bodily state 

Y 



322 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


is good, sometimes the spirit is wounded, and 
existence becomes more insupportable even than 
a shattered frame can render it. Repinings are 
however useless; the truest sage bears his mis¬ 
fortunes with the least murmuring; we are all 
destined to run our course, and in spite of the 
impropriety of a belief in the predisposition of 
events, which we cannot control, most at times 
feel themselves compelled to acquiesce in the 
opinion that there are occasions on which our 
will is not free, and that some accidents and dis¬ 
pensations arrive in a manner so unforeseen and 
so unmerited, as to shake the piety even of the 
good. 

On the 15th of August I sailed from Naples 
to Misenum, a promontory famous, in the time 
of Augustus, as the roadstead for the Roman 
fleet. The distance, with a fair wind, is per¬ 
formed in three hours, or even less. A theatre 
exists there in ruins, which is separated from 
the harbour by a side of rock; the latter was 
circled with houses, for the accommodation of 
those serving in the vessels stationed there, and 
for merchants. Galleries are still to be ob¬ 
served, wrought in the rock, through which the 
frequenters of the theatres passed, without mak¬ 
ing the circuit of land to reach it from the town 
and ships. At the entrance of this harbour the 
Romans sunk large masses of stone to form a 
breakwater, lest their galleys should be incom- 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


323 


moded by the waves. It has always however 
been secure from and impervious to gales, from 
its natural position. At the extremity is to be 
seen a steep declivity, where mountains cut upon 
the horizon, and at this point the unsuccessful 
treaty was entered into between Augustus, An¬ 
tony, and Sextus Pompeius. The two former 
accepted a repast on board the master galley of 
the latter; he had them in his power, and a per¬ 
fidious stab would have rendered him master of 
the world. The great spirit of his father, how¬ 
ever, was transmitted to him, and forbade the 
deed. He allowed his rivals to depart in safety, 
though by so doing he courted his own destruc¬ 
tion. The tide of fortune never permitted such 
another opportunity; while perhaps the security 
he had in the superior naval force at his com¬ 
mand when this presented itself, lulled his fear of 
ultimate failure, and he thought it unworthy to 
gain by treachery what he might fairly presume 
that he should compass by honourable force. I 
confess I have not generally that good opinion of 
kings and conquerors, to imagine that their con¬ 
sciences are too tender to allow them to take ad¬ 
vantage of what chance may throw in their way, 
from motives of delicacy ; yet many will hesitate, 
whether from goodness or prudence, in commit¬ 
ting actions for temporary advantage, which may 
render them infamous to posterity, and they some¬ 
times respect virtue, because without it even their 

y 2 


324 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


position is insecure and precarious in the world and 
amongst their subjects, and they afford an example 
to others which, by imitation, may sometimes 
serve themselves.—Here also are placed by Virgil 
the Elysian fields, on a plain a little to the right. 
Some poets have imagined them to be situated in 
Africa, some at the mouth of the Danube, and 
others have wandered remotely to seek them in 
the moon. Virgil however disdained to travel 
from home for the residence of the departed 
righteous ; he looked round his own fair land, and 
easily found an appropriate spot for the residence 
of his worthies. Such as these fields were then, 
they remain now ; no volcanic convulsion has 
distorted their lovely aspect, and no horrid gap 
has opened on their gently waving face. Here 
there are no chilly winter blasts; the temperature 
remains even and mild throughout the year. 
Small forest timber covers their slopes, and they 
enchant all who see them, without the aid of art 
or the embellishments of human caprice. 

At the distance of half a mile from the sea-shore, 
between Misenum and Baia, exists the famous 
“ piscina,” or reservoir of water for the inhabitants 
of the former place in ancient times, as well as 
for the fleet which might happen to be then sta¬ 
tioned in the port. Viewed at present, and empty 
as it is, it gives the idea of a large cathedral, sup¬ 
ported by arches, and divided into aisles. You 
descend steps till you arrive at the floor of the 


i 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


325 


excavation: the top is level with the ground, and 
is sustained by forty-eight pillars, divided into 
sections. The internal size is two hundred and 
twenty-eight Italian palmi in length, ninety-three 
in width, and twenty-five in height. The mate¬ 
rial of which it is constructed is brick, covered 
with strong plaster-work, and almost the whole 
has remained entire to the present day, and ap¬ 
pears as if it might be again repaired and made 
fit for service at a trifling expense. The water 
was conveyed to this tank from a distance of forty 
miles, and was then distributed to the different 
quarters where it was required, by pipes. The 
gutter or passage for the fluid is still to be seen. 
I confess I was charmed with this ancient Roman 
work, and it is the cleanest and best preserved 
composition I have seen of the great people by 
whom it was erected. Its author is not known; 
some assign it to Augustus, some to Agrippina, 
and some to Claudius. Perhaps, however, the 
first of the three may with most reason claim the 
honour, as a supply of that extent was necessary 
for the fleet stationed there in his time, being con¬ 
siderably prior to that of the two other reputed 
founders. To the back of the Piscina are to be 
seen various subterranean chambers, called the 
“ Cento Camarille,” of which tradition has given 
no certain account. They have been conjectured 
to be prisons, used by Nero. Along this road, to 
the Lucrine lake, extended the “Via Herculea" 


326 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


constructed by Hercules, according to Strabo, and 
remade by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus ; 
and near to Baia is a monument called the Se¬ 
pulchre of Agrippa, which however is supposed 
to be nothing more than the remains of an ancient 
theatre. In an inlet of the sea are to be distin¬ 
guished ancient baths; they appear merely as 
ruined edifices, but the moderns have dignified 
them with the pompous appellation of temples to 
Diana, Mercury, and Venus. This whole coast 
is full of ruins, and it was here that almost all the 
famous ancient villas were established. Mar- 
cellus, who is celebrated in the golden verses of 
Virgil, expired at the country-house of Caesar, 
which was at Baia. Of the town of Baia nothing 
remains; a modern fort alone indicates where the 
most dissolute of all the Roman residences once 
existed. A sojourn there was considered at that 
period, by the grave senators and moralists, as 
savouring only of effeminacy, and nothing was 
heard within the walls save the sounds of the 
lyre, and the sighs of licentiousness and love. Of 
this town Seneca observes, that the contagion 
of vice in it was so strong as to shame even the 
affectation of virtue, and that the inmates threw 
away the mask of decency, and gloried in their 
depravity. Baia is said to have been founded by 
Baius, a companion of Ulysses, but stricter in¬ 
quiries give reason to believe that before the 
Romans became a debauched nation, the place 


I 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 327 

was not known, and that in comparison with Poz- 
zuoli and Caprese, it is of modern date. Follow¬ 
ing the angles of the coast, I arrived at what are 
termed the baths of the palace of Nero, and now 
figure only as springs of sulphureous water, 
emitted from the earth at a boiling heat. They 
are used for bathing the sick of the different hos¬ 
pitals, who enter the water for a few seconds, and 
come out inundated with a profuse perspiration, 
occasioned by the steam, in a similar manner to 
the frequenters of the baths in Turkey. They 
are accommodated with seats to regain strength 
from their languor, on which they repose till the 
desired object is attained. The entrance to the 
cauldron is confined and narrow, under a low 
vaulted arch, which concentrates the heat of the 
vapour. When brought to day, the temperature 
of the liquid is ardent enough to boil an egg in a 
few moments. All round this neighbourhood are 
to be seen mouldering walls, and the causeway 
to the spring is formed from the original hard 
cement employed by the Romans. That a large 
edifice once existed here is beyond doubt, al¬ 
though the certainty of its nature, or the purpose 
for which it served, more than as enclosing a bath, 
cannot now be traced. Almost facing this is seen 
a small hill, with a conical top, which was raised 
from the level earth in three days by a subterra¬ 
nean fire, and it now separates two small lakes, the 
Lucrine and the Avernian. It was here that Virgil, 




328 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


in his poetic fancy, placed the descent to the in¬ 
fernal regions, and close by the banks of the 
Avernus was figured the grotto of the Sibyl. 
Cicero possessed a villa to the west of the Lucrine 
Lake, called Cumana, and which was distinct 
from the one at Pozzuoli, called the Academia. 
Among the ancients, the bed of oysters belonging 
to the Lucrine Lake was much esteemed; and 
the two sister waters were joined by a canal, 
before the appearance of the mount which now 
divides them. The hill is called, from the sud¬ 
denness of its appearance, Monte Nuovo. The 
ancient appellation of Pozzuoli was Dicearchia, 
being founded by Diceus, son of Neptune. It was 
under the Romans a position of such consequence 
as to be called the Little Rome. The church of 
the modern town was founded by Saint Paul; and 
the present cathedral was originally a temple of 
the Corinthian order, dedicated to Augustus. The 
town is surrounded by the mounts Olibanus and 
Gaurus, the Leucogean hills, and the Monte 
Nuovo. Near to the parish church is a colossal 
pedestal, round which are figured the fourteen 
cities restored and rebuilt by Tiberius after an 
earthquake. From the port of Pozzuoli are to be 
seen the arches on which Caligula constructed a 
bridge to Baia, in order that he might pass from 
one city to the other on horseback; of this bridge 
the supporters still remain. The great curiosity 
of the town, however, is what is called the temple 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


329 


to Isis, though some maintain it to have been 
erected to Esculapius, from the mineral waters 
below, and it now serves as part of the building 
to the baths : it was never finished. The ground¬ 
work of the plan, and three columns, still remain 
perfect. The former is one hundred and sixty- 
three palmi long, by one hundred and forty-two 
wide. There was a coloured portico in the middle, 
ascended by steps, and round which stood sixteen 
columns. Time has however spared little of 
these. Round the whole interior were rooms 
which served for the accommodation of the priests 
and holy men attached to the edifice. It had 
four entrances, besides a principal one, opposite 
to which was the cell where stood the statue of 
the Divinity, and which was ornamented with 
six large columns. An anomaly which has never 
been explained, is, that many marine remains are 
found close up to the site of this building. The 
mineral waters, as may be supposed from the 
vicinity, are sulphureous, and esteemed beneficial 
for the rheumatic. As the traveller draws near 
to Naples, he will find a hermitage on a promon¬ 
tory, surrounded by sharp rocks of great size, and 
on one of them is suspended a basket, attached 
by a pole, where the holy man, devoted to Saint 
Francis, the god of the fishers, implores charity 
from the passengers. Some remains of ancient 
brick in this place are said to denote the school 
of Virgil, and on the brow of a neighbouring emi- 


330 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


nence is seen a white spot, called the Solfaterra. 
Although limited in extent, it was considered a 
volcano, and called by the ancients the furnace of 
Vulcan. The lake of Agnano, on this road, near 
Naples, is formed by an accumulation of water 
in the fiery pit of an extinct volcano, and on the 
side is the Grotto del Caso, noted by Pliny, which 
exhales carbonic acid vapour, destructive to animal 
life in a few seconds. A dog exposed to it qui¬ 
vers and loses animation almost immediately, 
which however the creature regains on removal and 
exposure to the fresh and wholesome atmosphere. 

I will now say somewhat more of the east¬ 
ern side of Naples, namely, of Portici, Hercu¬ 
laneum, and the neighbourhood of Pompeii. To 
be diffuse on these places, the most interesting 
perhaps in the world, would require a volume; I 
will therefore only sketch their general character 
and appearance. Portici may be called a suburb 
of Naples, at four miles distance. It stands over 
the remains of Herculaneum, and is a modern 
town, but contains a pleasure-seat of the royal 
family of Naples, and the court choose this and 
that of Capo di Monte for their autumnal resi¬ 
dence, spending nearly two months in each place. 
The palace of Portici was built by the Bourbonic 
King Charles, with however a very bad plan; 
for the high road runs between the middle of the 
building. It possesses a fine view over the bay 
to the back, and the general dimensions of the 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


331 


rooms are grand and striking. In one of them 
are the portraits by Gerard of Bonaparte, of Ma¬ 
dame Letitia his mother, of Lucien Bonaparte, 
and two of the gallant and ill-fated Murat; one 
as he appeared in his imperial robes, a full length, 
and another half length of him as a high admiral, 
in a beautiful suit of silver and blue. In spite 
of altered circumstances, these portraits of great 
personages still keep their places. When envy 
and prejudice have passed away, they will perhaps 
be considered as European treasures, and king¬ 
doms will dispute for the possession of those whose 
lives were a romance, and whose great deeds would 
form a history, equalling almost, in the strangeness 
of its interest, the narratives of fable. A small 
theatre is fitted up in this palace with much taste. 
Specimens of the Neapolitan porcelain, which 
however is much inferior to the Dresden and French, 
abound in the rooms, and tables in verd antique and 
lava meet the eye of the visiter in every direction. 
They are in accordance with what is to be expected 
in a volcanic neighbourhood, the material of which 
forms ornamental furniture. I saw many objects 
of curiosity, many painted walls, and carved side¬ 
boards, and every thing reminded me that taste 
had not yet abandoned the people among whom 
I moved, that the spirits of the older worthies 
still animated their successors, and the inspira¬ 
tions which they possessed breathed from out 
their descendants, damped indeed by subjection, 


332 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


and fettered by new customs and a new religion. 
In fact, a country so beautiful as Italy cannot 
but give birth to people whose minds are accord¬ 
ant with its loveliness. They look on nature, 
and are inspired ; they regard the models and 
works of their ancestors, and are penetrated with 
their beauties; give them books, and they ap¬ 
preciate the labours of those gone before, and 
form a style in every thing they undertake pure 
and chastened after their model. If the Dutch, 
amidst their fogs and humid skies, have produced 
representations of nature novel and enchanting, 
why should not the Italian, with his natural inge¬ 
nuity, succeed, who has all creation, sea, land, 
and heaven, open and smiling on him, and re¬ 
quiring scarcely more than true representation in 
a copyist, to gain him credit in their display ?— 
The remains of the town of Herculaneum are very 
interesting; it is said to have been founded fifty 
years before the taking of Troy, and we have 
a certainty that it was coeval with the very ear¬ 
liest period of the Roman republic. In one street 
the houses remain almost entire, and some of 
them consisted of two stories. The Museum of 
Naples is enriched by the spoils of this ancient 
city, and contains all that is most curious in its 
paintings and sculpture, although enough has 
been left standing on the walls to give a very 
good idea of the ancient mode of adorning cham¬ 
bers, and their peculiar forms. Herculaneum 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


333 


had been much damaged by an earthquake six¬ 
teen years before it was overwhelmed with lava. 
This last calamity happened in the 79th year of 
the Christian era. The flood of burning liquid 
was deposited in various strata or beds. The sea 
was driven back near a thousand feet by the rush 
of the stony deluge, and the ancient port of Re¬ 
tina entirely filled. Charles the Third began 
to make the excavations, and was the first to 
examine these subterraneous vaults, which are 
much below the surface of Portici. The ac¬ 
cidental circumstance of sinking a shaft for 
water disclosed the theatre, which is of the usual 
horse-shoe shape, similar to the one at Pom¬ 
peii, but larger. Pliny the younger wrote an ac¬ 
count of the eruption, which destroyed both 
these towns. In consequence of a desire to see 
an old friend and acquaintance, Mr. Keppel 
Craven, I undertook the journey from Castella- 
mare—which is at some distance from Hercu¬ 
laneum, and to which I have proceeded—to the 
Monte della Virgine, where he resides, at the 
village of Penta, near Salerno. The road the 
whole way from the sea-shore in this direction, 
is very romantic and interesting; I passed moun¬ 
tain scenery of the choicest kind, and was gra¬ 
tified with a sight of Italice, a village on the 
hills, not to be approached in a carriage. It was 
hither that Pliny fled to avoid the eruption of 
Vesuvius, in which he perished. This hamlet. 



334 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


of a date anterior even to the other towns buried 
by the fiery mountain, maintains its original 
situation, and though now extremely poor, was 
once rich, till converted by Sylla, who ruined it, 
into a villa. The inhabitants, however, have as 
yet lived from youth to age through successive 
generations unmolested by the fiery element, and 
secure in their mediocrity of fortune. They have 
seen the riches and the power of their neighbours 
rise and fall, and have contemplated in security 
the convulsions and destruction of worldly pride 
and greatness. They have been protected by the 
divinity who wards off ruin from the humble, and 
in these retreats the rustic has sunk to the grave, 
not by the sudden blast of calamity or violence, 
but by the gradual decay of a calm old age. Of 
those gone by it may be said that, the common 
lot fulfilled, all are equal in the grave; but the 
moralist has pleasure in being able to picture to 
himself some good genius protecting the simple 
children of nature, who, satisfied with what he 
bestows on them, look not beyond the accom¬ 
plishment of their ordinary wants for pleasure 
and delight. The town of Nocera, through which 
I passed, and which stands more than half way 
between Castellamare and the Penta, (the entire 
distance being seventeen miles,) presents nothing 
interesting; but soon after leaving it, I entered 
on dells and glades worthy of, and which would 
do honour to, our romantic Derbyshire. The 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


335 


residence of Mr. Craven is very spacious, and 
replete with every comfort. He himself is fa¬ 
vourably known to the public as the author of 
the Tour in Calabria, a work displaying learning, 
genius, and a cultivated mind: his conversation 
and his manners are equally pleasing, and the 
former most instructive. It were much to be 
desired that he would give to the world his essays 
on the Abruzzi. The shape of his house is pic¬ 
turesque in the extreme; it was formerly a con¬ 
vent, and much land is attached to it, so that the 
owner unites the employment of an English 
country gentleman to the pleasure of an Italian 
villa: all the monastic peculiarities of construc¬ 
tion remain, whilst judicious management has 
introduced every modern convenience. After 
dinner we drove on the Salerno road, and passed 
the village of Baronisi, where the famous bandit 
“ Fra Diavolo” distinguished himself during the 
occupation of the territory by the French. A 
price, however, was set on his head—gold is 
tempting to all, even when not obtained by the 
apprehension of a criminal—he was seized and 
slain, and I saw his betrayer sitting quietly in 
conversation with the other country folks at the 
door of an apothecary’s shop, the general resort 
for all idlers in the small Italian towns. How 
often have I enjoyed the delightful opera of Fra 
Diavolo in the happy clime of France !—Distant 
scenes and associations crowded to my mind, and I 


336 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


attached far more interest to the village of Baron isi, 
and this history, from recollection of the places 
and persons amongst which and whom I heard it, 
than I probably should otherwise have done. A 
withered leaf—any slight token—will often call 
back the emotions of the heart, and cause it to 
overflow. I was obliged to leave my hospitable 
entertainer on the following day, and proceeded to 
Naples, passing again through Nocera, and visit¬ 
ing the ruins of Pompeii. This city, on which 
volumes have been and still may be written, and 

i 

which would occupy in minute examination many 
weeks, I scanned with a hasty glance, but I hope 
my mind was alive to the recollections they bring 
back of ancient history, and the awful lesson they 
impart to the beholder of the perishableness of 
all earthly things. As we cannot penetrate into 
the future, we are curious about the past; and 
Pompeii presents a rich banquet for the inquisitive. 
The man of pleasure will be able to guess, from 
the remains of this town, how the baths, the por¬ 
ticos, the kitchens, the theatres, and the apart¬ 
ments of the votaries of epicurism were distri¬ 
buted two thousand years ago:—if he be not 
satisfied with modern luxury, he will have it in 
his power to copy the ancient. The philosopher 
will see the schools, the halls of justice, the 
prisons, the barracks of soldiers, in short all the 
domestic economy of those from whom our ideas 
of government and policy are borrowed: he can 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


337 


compare the former with the modern, and be at 
least satisfied by informing himself whether they 
were better or worse than those of his own country. 
The moralist may linger in the street of tombs, 
and remark that the inflexible creditor spared 
neither the young, the rich, nor the great, and 
was as capriciously unmerciful to the inmates of 
Pompeii in those days, as he proves himself to us 
in these. The forum, which is four hundred feet 
long by one hundred and fifty broad, is sur¬ 
rounded by its marble seats, and conveys even 
now to the spectator the idea that it wants only 
inmates to be again the market of the town. 
Close by are the remains of the basilica, or jus¬ 
tice-hall, the college of the priests, and the temples 
of Venus, of Jupiter, and of Mercury. I saw a beau¬ 
tiful marble altar for sacrificing, which was under 
lock and key in one of the ruined houses, pre¬ 
viously to being transported to Naples. I had 
been told, however, that the government had de¬ 
termined on leaving all the different features of 
this disinterred town where they were found, to 
render their illusion still more complete, and no 
more to dismantle its houses. I saw among the 
excavations, where the explorers were now at 
work, the grape flourishing with its tendrils over 
the mutilated shafts and walls of a half-buried 
edifice. The tesselated pavement, so famous as 
to have been engraved and exhibited in every 
corner of Naples, represents the battle ol Arbela 


z 


338 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


between Darius and Alexander, forming the pave¬ 
ment of a small room, and is covered and pro¬ 
tected by a shade of glass;—but there is a smaller 
one quite perfect, an allegorical representation of 
the river Nile, and filled with marine animals, 
which I think much more beautiful in point of 
colour and execution, and, as far as I could judge, 
by the same hand. This last, however, is left 
shamefully without protection. Of the large mo¬ 
saic a considerable portion is wanting. The 
temple of Isis is small, but very perfect; indeed, 
the only part wanting is the roof. After linger¬ 
ing a few hours in this place, I proceeded on my 
journey to Naples, dining at the Torre del An- 
nunziata, and gained the capital through the 
towns of Torre del Greco and Portici, which 
form a street of five miles in length. The road 
is volcanic all the way, and pieces of lava obtrude 
themselves in every direction, both in the town 
and country. The buildings of these suburbs of 
Naples are almost all palaces without an inha¬ 
bitant, untidy and ill-kept; they have generally 
gardens down to the sea, and present an aspect 
of departed opulence. Caserta is a famous royal 
seat, which I have neglected to see, and am told 
that its aqueduct is magnificent, and the struc¬ 
ture of its palace accordant with what is due to 
royalty; but all is modern, and those familiar 
with English parks and English splendour are 
often disappointed and fatigued with what they 


THE PRECINCTS OF NAPLES. 


339 


see on the continent, even before they reach 
Naples. 

I have now finished what I have at present to 
say concerning the shores of the Mediterranean; 
and though removed now to a great distance from 
Italy, I confess that it contains perhaps more 
worth seeing than more distant regions—that is, 
the west of the Mediterranean is more interesting 
than the east. Every one however can judge 
according to fancy; and I hope at no distant 
period to give to the world my notes of what 
I have observed in the Archipelago and on the 
Bosphorus. 


THE END. 


s 


LONDON ! 

PRINTED BY C. ROWOR1H AND SONS, BELL-YARD, 
TEMPLE BAR. 






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